Signed promotional photograph for Australian vaudeville performer Rosie Rifle, a celebrated sharpshooter.

[Chicago, U.S.A. : Repro Celebrity, 1921]. Gelatin silver print, 250 x 200 mm; a photomontage of a shooting target with a head-and-shoulders portrait of Rosie Rifle as the bullseye, inscribed in ink in her own hand: ‘Yours truly, Rosie Rifle, Australia’s Rifle Expert’; verso inscribed in ink in another (fully contemporary) hand: ‘Rosie Rifle & Co., Australian Act De Luxe’; mild edge creasing and a short tear at right edge, otherwise very good.

Rosie Rifle, usually billed as Rosie Rifle & Co., was an Australian professional sharpshooter who worked throughout New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia as a vaudeville performer for Harry Rickards’ Tivoli Theatres and Fullers’ Theatres from the early 1910s through to the 1920s. In 1921 she toured the United States, where this promotional photograph was produced for her in Chicago. Her career extended at least into the early 1930s, as she was billed as one of the main acts on the Pedro Bros. Circus tour of New Zealand in 1931.

The following review of a Rosie Rifle & co. performance was published in The Mail, Adelaide, 21 October 1916:

‘ROSIE RIFLE SHOT. Accident to Lady Sharpshooter. Many people look on the feats of vaudeville sharpshooters with considerable suspicion, but there was no gainsaying the reality of the act of Miss Rosie Rifle. The young lady was making her first appearance under the Fuller banner in her new drawing room act, when her partner, misjudging his aim by a hairbreadth, shot Miss Rifle in a leg. An ambulance took her to the hospital immediately, and the engagement abruptly concluded. Miss Rifle is now quite well again, however, and willing to take all the risks incidental to her profession. Her new act is set in a drawing room, where a husband awaits his sporting wife. Miss Rifle enters in sports costume, evidently fresh from a shooting expedition. She wakes her husband by shooting the tip off his cigar. Then she goes off, to return in evening dress. Meanwhile her partner presents some feats, and the set finishes with a highly spectacular display of sharpshooting. This act is now being presented at the Majestic Theatre.’

There are no photographs or other memorabilia associated with Rosie Rifle on Trove.