According to the Internet source given below, Gertie Gitana [Gertrude Mary Astbury] was an English music hall entertainer born in Longport, Stoke-on-Trent.
Aged just four, she was enrolled in Tomkinson's Royal Gipsy Children performing in Hanley. Her solo professional debut was in 1896 at the age of eight at The Tivoli, Barrow-in-Furness. She career continued with top billings, sometimes as "The Staffordshire Cinderella", with an act which included singing, tap dancing, yodelling, and playing the saxophone. Amongst her sentimental songs Nellie Dean (1905 - words & music: Henry W. Armstrong) became her signature tune with which she enjoyed great success. Her first recordings were made in London on the Jumbo label from 1911 to 1913. World War I saw her as the Forces' sweetheart entertaining the war wounded in hospitals. . After the war, she appeared in pantomime retiring in 1938 but made a comeback in 1948 in Thanks for the Memory which was also part of the Royal Command Performance. Her final appearance was in 1950 at the Empress Theatre, Brixton.
She died in Hampstead, London.
Fun fact: In Cockney rhyming slang, Gertie Gitana means a banana.

Websites:
	Gertie Gitana	Biography by wikipedia.org.