CABARET VILLE MAGAZINE. P28 Cont'd from P27
LA GOULUE
THE SUPER
STAR OF LE MOULIN ROUGE. THE WEALTHY QUEEN OF MONTMARTRE CABARETS WHO BECAME
THE SADDEST SHADOW OF POVERTY IN THE STREETS OF PARIS
Photos: Mademoiselle La
Goulue, the Super Star of the French Can Can. Quite a woman, quite a character
and quite a human tragedy!
Photo: La Goulue, painting by Toulouse-Lautrec, who adored her.
WHO IS LA GOULUE?
IMPOVERISHED BEGINNING: She lived the two lives of Cabaret: The happy one of a rich and famous dancer on stage and the tragic one in her real life, when her last impoverished days ended her up in the streets of Paris, where she died totally forgotten, homeless and toothless. Nee Louise Weber (Her real name), she was born in Clichy, France, on July 13, 1866. Her mother was a “Blanchisseuse”, and she worked as a cleaning lady in a laundry. Her father, unknown. Not much is known about La Goulue's early childhood, but the "mairie" (Municipality office records) dossiers show that she was born to a Jewish family from Alsace that eventually moved to Paris. The little La Goulue's greatest joy came from dressing up in that laundry customers pricey clothes, and pretending to be a super star, a great dancer on the most prestigious stage in Paris. She loved to dance, and she danced wherever and whenever she could. At age 16, she began to work as a "blanchisseuse" with her mother in that miserable laundry, and behind her mother's back, the impoverished girl began to sneak off with a 16 year old lover, Edmond, to a dance hall dressed in one of their customer's "borrowed" dresses. To earn extra Francs, La Goulue sold roses on rue de la Goutte d’Or. From time to time, La Goulue danced at small and obscure clubs around Paris, and it did not take her long to become popular in those milieux. She was liked and noticed for both her dancing skills and delightfully audacious behavior. But she was still far away from fame and fortune. In her extravagant and audacious routine, La Goulue used to tease the male audience by swirling her raised snow-white dress to reveal embroidered hearts on her panties. And she did not hesitate to perform high front kicks while flipping off a man's hat with her toe. Because of her habit of constantly picking up customers glasses and quickly downing whatever they contained while dancing, journalist Gabriel Astruc, affectionately, nicknamed her, "La Goulue", meaning the Glutton. CONTINUES NEXT