Yvette Guilbert

Yvette Guilbert ( 20 January 1865 – 3 February 1944) was a French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque. Born in Paris into a poor family as Emma Laure Esther Guilbert, Guilbert began singing as a child but at age sixteen worked as a model at the Printemps department store in Paris. She was discovered by a journalist. She took acting and diction lessons, which enabled her in 1886 to appear on stage at several smaller venues. Guilbert debuted at the Variette Theatre in 1888. She eventually sang at the popular Eldorado club, then at the Jardin de Paris before headlining in Montmartre at the Moulin Rouge in 1890. The English painter William Rothenstein described this performance in his first volume of memoirs.

In 1895 she married Dr. M. Schiller. Guilbert made successful tours of England and Germany, and the United States in 1895–1896. 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 (including a star turn in F. W. Murnau’s Faust). She also appeared in talkies, including a role with friend, Sacha Guitry. Her recordings for La Voix de son maître include the famous “Le Fiacre” as well as some of her own compositions such as “Madame Arthur”. She accompanied herself on piano for some numbers.

She once gave a performance for the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, at a private party on the French Riviera. Hostesses vied to have her at their parties.

In later years, Guilbert turned to writing about the Belle Époque and in 1902 two of her novels (La Vedette and Les Demi-vieilles) were published. In the 1920s there appeared her instructional book L’art de chanter une chanson (The art of singing a Song). She also conducted schools for young girls in New York and Paris. One of her pupils in Paris was the American soprano and folk song fieldworker Loraine Wyman.

Guilbert became a respected authority on her country’s medieval folklore and on 9 July 1932 was awarded the Legion of Honor as the Ambassadress of French Song.

Yvette Guilbert died in 1944, aged 79, in Aix-en-Provence. She was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Reference: Wikipedia

Below are some example of prints featuring the actress including a color lithograph by  Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec  and a photographic portrait.