Anita Mahfood

Well supported

Anita Mahfood, known professionally as Marguerita, was a Jamaican rhumba dancer of Lebanese-Jamaican descent, schooled at Alpha Academy, who became Kingston's leading exotic dancer of the late 1950s. In 1959 she insisted that Count Ossie's Rastafarian drummers back her show at the Ward Theatre over promoter Vere Johns's objections, giving Count Ossie's ensemble its first performance before a mainstream audience and helping legitimise Rastafarian music in Jamaican popular entertainment. She died in 1965.