Yvette Guilbert
Yvette Guilbert (
Paris,
January 20,
1867 –
February 4,
1944 in
Aix-en-Provence) was a music-hall singer and actress.
Born into abject poverty, Guilbert began singing as a child but at age sixteen worked as a model at the
Printemps department store in Paris. She took voice and acting lessons on the side that by 1886 led to appearances on stage at smaller venues. She eventually sang at the popular Eldorado club, then at the
Jardin de Paris before headlining in
Montmartre at the
Moulin Rouge in 1890. For her act, she was usually dressed in bright yellow with long black gloves and stood almost perfectly still, gesturing with her long arms as she sang. An innovator, she performed raunchy songs of tragedy and lost love about the Parisian poverty from which she had come. Guilbert broke and rewrote all the rules with her audacious lyrics, and the audiences loved her. She was a favorite subject of artist
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who made many portraits and caricatures of Guilbert and dedicated his second album of sketches to her.
Guilbert made successful tours of
England and
Germany, and in the
United States she performed at
Carnegie Hall in
New York City. Even in her fifties, her name still had drawing power and she appeared in several
silent films as well as in
talkies, including a role with friend,
Sacha Guitry. In later years, Guilbert turned to writing about the
Belle Epoque and in 1902 two of her novels were published.
Yvette Guilbert died in 1944 at the age of 77 and was interred in the
Pére Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
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