Silent Wierdness: Born Today January 20: Yvette Guilbert

1865-1944

One of the performers that made Paris' Moulin Rouge famous was Yvette Guilbert, she was not an original performer, but she was close enough to become one the cabaret's associated names. The singer was born Emma Laure Esther Guilbert on this day in the French capital into a very poor family in a poor part of the city. She was also born with a singing talent and began singing as child less than ten years old. Her career played out almost entirely on the stage, which was a long career starting in 1886 after a couple of years of singing studies; she made her professional debut in the Montmartre section of Paris (of course) in 1888. By 1890 she was at the Moulin Rouge, one year after it's opening. A favorite of Lautrec, who would introduce her at the cabaret, she also became a favorite subject of his art (Guilbert had also worked as a clothing model at Printemps for a time). With her signature lack of rouge, milky white skin, long lankly arms bathed in elbow high gloves (usually black), and girlish singing voice giving performances of some the raunchiest lyrics of the day on a monologue style--she was absolutely perfect for the Moulin Rouge! She became hugely influential in her style (writing many of her own lyrics), giving rise to a whole new style of patter song, what might be correctly called "comic patter torch songs" about lose of love, poverty and sex. [If anyone as seen the first season of The Alienist, specifically the second episode 'A Fruitful Partnership,' then you have seen this style of signing inside the Paresis Hall scene with actor Luke Evan's character John Moore entering the establishment.] She sometimes appeared along side another popular Rouge singer of the day Kam-Hill, but she became a sensation all on her own. It did not take long before her local fame spread nationally and finally internationally. By the mid 1890's she was touring on both the continent and in England. Eventually she also toured North America, even performing at Carnegie Hall in New York. Though her cabaret was what she was famous for, she was not just a musician, she was also a writer of both history and novels, instructions and, of course, she acted in films. Guilbert was first captured on film in the 1890's in short documentary like films. Though two of them, dating from 1898, were German shorts of her in performance: Yvette Guilbert 1 and Yvette Guilbert 2, she was first captured on film 1896 in a film the On the Calais Steamboat, a UK short actuality. But she also had a short film acting career. She made her debut in a George Terwilliger short An Honorable Cad, a short film made for a war relief fund in the United States in 1919--it was a charity film; Guilbert was at the top of the bill along with Edmund Breese. Her next film appearance in 1924 was also her first appearance in a French motion picture. Les deux gosses was a serial based on a Pierre Decourcelle novel directed by Louis Mercanton. But it was her appearance in Murnau's Faust in 1926 that is the height of her film roles. Appearing with Emil Jannings as Mephisto in what can only be called a comic type performance, she was clearly enjoying her performance experience during the shooting and adds to the overall dread and charm of the film. That same year she appeared in yet another German production The Merry Madcap, based on a George Sand novel and directed by Frederic Zelnick, she played the older version of the character Fadette, while Lya Mara played the younger version. Now in her sixties, she appeared in her last silent feature in 1928, a French production, L'Argent (released on Christmas day) was a romantic drama featuring Guilbert in the role of Le Méchain and starred Brigitte Helm (of Metropolis fame) in the lead role. She appeared in two more films in the 1920's, both in 1929 and both shorts. The second of them was Bluff, a film directed by Georges Lacombe in just his sophomore turn in the directors chair, a 20 minute full sound musical that featured her amongst a host of later cabaret performers (many of whom only appeared in film this once). Her film appearances in the 1930's consisted of shorts and features, the most prominent of which Maurice Tourneur's The Two Orphans in 1933. Guilbert lived in France until her death in France on the 3rd of February of 1944 at the age of 79. She is buried at Paris' famed Pére Lachaise cemetery.