Yvette Guilbert, from Le Café Concert

Yvette Guilbert (1865-1944) was a French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque. Her ingenious delivery of songs charged with risqué meaning made her famous. She also appeared in several classic silent films. Guilbert’s father, Hippolyte, was a bon vivant who frequented cabarets and enjoyed the company of women. He sometimes brought his daughter with him to the café-concerts, where she showed a precocious singing talent. She was discovered by journalist Charles Zidler, who later became director of the Moulin Rouge, and he introduced Yvette to the world of show business. She eventually headlined at the Moulin-Rouge for many years, before moving to the Folies-Bergère. For her act, she was usually dressed in bright yellow with signature long black gloves and stood almost perfectly still, gesturing with her long arms as she sang. An innovator, she favored monologue-like ‘patter songs’ and was often billed as a diseuse or ‘storyteller.’ The lyrics were raunchy; their subjects were tragedy, lost love, and the Parisian poverty from which she had come. Taking her cue from the new cabaret performances, Guilbert broke and rewrote all the rules of music-hall with her audacious lyrics, and the audiences loved her. Even in her fifties, her name still had drawing power. She shared a friendship with Sigmund Freud, and 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.