#Bouchaud

[postcard-from-the-past]

French singer and actress Émilie Marie Bouchaud, known by her stage name Polaire

French vintage Reutlinger postcard

[detournementsmineurs]

“Paris Police 1905 (Saison 2)” série créé par Fabien Nury (2022) - suite de “Paris Police 1900” (2021) - avec Jérémie Laheurte, Évelyne Brochu, François Raison, Thibaut Evrard, Alexandre Trocki, Eugénie Derouand, Marc Barbé, Mathilde Weil, Christian Hecq, Vincent Debost, Mikaël Halimi, Caroline Darchen, Nicolas Bouchaud, Clotilde Mollet, la jeune Amélia Lacquemant et la participation de Marie-Armelle Deguy, octobre 2024.

[celluloidrainbow]

MON ARBRE (2011) dir. Bérénice André Marie is ten years old and part of an incredibly modern family. Conceived by two men and two women, all gay and today all separated, she has two dads, two moms, a step-dad, a step-mother, and a handful of brothers and sisters. Celebrating Christmas with the family, in these conditions, is almost a feat. But as she goes from home to home and tries, as best she can, to share her love, Marie asks herself questions about her coming into the world. Could she be, like the other Mary, the Immaculate Conception? (link in title)

[coulisses-onirisme]

Elegance universelle

Polaire was the stage name used by French singer and actress Émilie Marie Bouchaud 

[kayflapper]

Émilie Marie Bouchaud! A French actress, she had a 14" inch waist, first bobbed her hair in the 1890s.

[quentin-de-ladelune]

Picture by Quentin de Ladelune

Les Jasses de Bouchaud - 2023

To buy a print : www.quentindeladelune.bigcartel.com

WWW.QUENTINDELADELUNE.COM

[merovingian-marvels]

The marvelous story of Rouillac

The area surrounding French village Rouillac (dep. Charente, Ar. Cognac) is an Early Medieval unicum.

Of Gallic origin, Rouillac as a village came to prominence due to Roman occupation. Rouillac is likely derived from Rulliacum (domain of Rullius). The area bloomed because of its close proximity to the Via Agrippa. This is visible in the presence of a Roman theatre, bath houses and a Gallo-Roman burial site/sanctuary (located in Bouchauds). Unique finds include a statuette of Epona, a Gallic goddess.

Like most great Roman settlements, the area continued to be inhabited by people after the fall of the (Western-) Roman Empire. The site was inhabited both by Merovingians and Visigoths.

The area continued to be a rich society, shown in the Germanic burial site at Herpes. The site also shows how the Goths and Franks lived in good coexistence with each other.

Rouillac is because of this coexistence the southernmost and westernmost Merovingian village and the northernmost Visigothic village.

The parure above is Merovingian, but shows clear gothic influences (predominantly in the radiate-headed brooches).

The British Museum, London - United Kingdom

Museum nrs. 1905,0520.994

Found in Herpes, Charente - France

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 12

1660 – Cardinal Francesco Maria de' Medici, was born in Florence, the son of Grand duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany and Vittoria Della Rovere (d.1711).

In 1683 he was appointed to governor of Siena, a position he maintained until his death. He was the grand prior of the Sovereign Order of Malta in Pisa; Abbot commendatario of S. Galgano, Siena; Abbot commendatario of S. Stefano, Carrara, 1675.

According to a family tradition was promoted to the cardinalate at a young age in 1686. He remained in Florence, in his villa of Lappeggi, devoting himself to a life not really religious, made of amusements and love affairs with men.

He resigned the cardinalate on June 19, 1709 and was named prince of Siena. He then was forced to marry in 1709 Eleonore Luisa Gonzaga, duchess of Guastalla, daughter of Vincenzo Gonzaga, in an attempt to save the dynasty, but they did not have children.

1679 – Sweden: Lisabetha Olsdotter is convicted of abandoning her husband and children, becoming a soldier, and marrying a woman. She is accused of “mutilating” her gender and mocking God. She is executed by decapitation.

1746 – Jacques Charles (d.1823) was a French mathematician and inventor, best known for his work with the hydrogen balloon.

Jacques was the only child of his parents. Jacques' education consisted of basic arithmetic , and no science at all. Other than this almost nothing is known about his earlier years.

Late in life Jacques married a creole woman, Julie Françoise Bouchaud des Hérettes, who was 37 years younger than himself. Many historians believe that his marriage was a cover up for his homosexual relationship with the poet, Alphonse de Lamartine.

In 1785 Charles became a professor at the French Académie des Sciences without having any formal science education himself.

Without Charles's contributions, the Hindenburg would not have even existed, so that accident would not have occurred, and we wouldn't have the one-way valve, or at least until someone else came up for the idea after Charles did.

Most notably Jacques Charles is known for the Hydrogen balloon which he built with the Robert Brothers. Jacques originally got the idea for using hydrogen gas as a lifting agent after intensive study of Boyle's Law. Previous to the use of hydrogen gas, hot air was used to make balloons fly.

Charles also is known for the invention of the gas valve, which he used on his hydrogen balloons, the hydrometer, and the reflection goniometer. He improved the heilostat and the arometer. Charles also confirmed Benjamin Franklin's electrical experiments. Charles is also responsible for Charles's Law, but did not publish it. It was published by Joseph Gay-Lussac in 1802, and Joseph named it in Charles's honor, crediting an unpublished work by Jacques Charles.

Jacques Charles outlived his young wife, and later died himself April 7, 1823 in Paris.

1915 – Roland Barthes (d.1980), a French semanticist, symbolist, and philosopher, like André Gide and Marcel Proust, two of his favorite writers, was somewhat of an outsider. He was Protestant. (France is predominantly Catholic.) He was left-handed. (France is, of course, predominantly right-handed.) He was déclassé. (Barthes's father, a naval officer, died in the First World War, and his mother had to work as a bookbinder.) He was consumptive. (Barthes spent several years in sanatoria.) And he was expatriate. (Barthes spent the 1950s in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, working for cultural services.) He was also, like Proust, (if not like Gide, who saw himself as a pederast), a homosexual.

Barthes's critical writings are best understood in relation to this sexual marginality. Because Barthes sees homosexuality, and for that matter any transgressive and eccentric "perversion," as unclassifiable, he rejects the classification "inversion" as inaccurate—a notion that will come as a surprise to gays and lesbians who see themselves as "inverts."

Oddly enough, Barthes does not reject every gay male stereotype. Barthes rejects sexual inversion, but embraces "tricking" and "cruising," activities that he claims represent true sexual liberation. (Not that they did so for Barthes himself; his autobiographical texts suggest he had an unhappy love life.) Cruising, he writes, is "anti-natural, anti-repetition." It may be that Barthes is simply "protecting" his sexuality here (something he feels all writers do), or at least the macho ("phallocentric") part of his sexuality because whereas sexual inversion feminizes gay men, cruising for tricks is a rather manly (and purportedly desirable) thing to do.

Barthes sees tricking and cruising as desirable in another sense as well. The trick, he writes, "is homogenous to the amorous progression; it is a virtual love, deliberately stopped short on each side, by contract." Likewise, men cruise with "the invincible idea that one will find someone with whom to be in love." Some gays (who cruise for sex, not love) will find these descriptions unrealistic. Barthes, however, feels that sentimentality, in an age such as ours in which love doesn't make too much sense, is essentially—and even nonparadoxically—insignificant.

According to Barthes, "it is Western discourse as such" —discourse that marginalizes and stereotypes gays and lesbians—" that we must now try to break apart."

1930 – Bob Crewe (d.2014) was an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, record producer and fine artist. He was known for producing, and co-writing with Bob Gaudio, a string of Top 10 singles for the Four Seasons.

Born in Newark in 1930 and reared in Belleville, New Jersey, Crewe demonstrated an early and apparent gift for both art and music. Although lacking in formal musical training, he gravitated to learning from many of the great 19th- and 20th-century classical romantic composers as well as giants of jazz and swing, including Stan Kenton, Harry James, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey. He studied for almost a year at Parsons School of Design in New York City with the intention of eventually pursuing a career in architecture.

In 1953 Crewe met and partnered professionally with Frank Slay Jr., a young pianist from Texas. Their collaboration created several hit songs (including a small record label XYZ), for which Crewe performed as the demo singer. Crewe and Slay's 1957 recording session with the Rays for their XYZ label (picked up nationally by Cameo Records) produced two big song hits. Produced by Crewe, the record's A-side, "Silhouettes", became a doo-wop anthem of the era. Climbing to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 1957, "Silhouettes" displayed the flair for story-driven lyrics, innovative musical "hooks", and a final lyrical twist that were to become known as Crewe trademarks. "Daddy Cool" was the B side of that same 1957 session. His song-writing career was launched.

As a songwriter, his most successful songs included "Silhouettes" (co-written with Frank Slay); "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Walk Like a Man", "Rag Doll", "Silence Is Golden", "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)", "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" and "Bye, Bye, Baby" (all co-written with Gaudio); "Let's Hang On!" (wriiten with Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell); and "My Eyes Adored You" and "Lady Marmalade" (both co-written with Kenny Nolan). He also had hit recordings with the Rays, Diane Renay, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Freddy Cannon, Lesley Gore, Oliver, Michael Jackson, Bobby Darin, Roberta Flack, Peabo Bryson, Patti LaBelle, and his own Bob Crewe Generation.

Since 2005 Crewe has been featured as a supporting character (played originally by Peter Gregus) in Jersey Boys, the multiple Tony Award-winning, long-running Broadway musical (later a film) based on the story of Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons that has gone on to become an international hit. Crewe is credited as the show's lyricist. He used his proceeds from the show to start a foundation supporting people with AIDS, gay rights, and bringing music and art to children in deprived communities.

Crewe was portrayed as "overtly gay" in "Jersey Boys," but his brother Dan told The New York Times he was discreet about his sexuality, particularly during the time he was working with the Four Seasons.

"Whenever he met someone, he would go into what I always called his John Wayne mode, this extreme machoism," Dan Crewe told The New York Times. He was then asked if any of the songs his brother wrote were based on a romance with another man and he demurred, "Bob was just a good story teller." But were they stories about his boyfriends, changed into stories about girlfriends?

1946 – James F. Amos is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general who served as the 35th Commandant of the Marine Corps. As a Naval Aviator, Amos commanded the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing during the Iraq War in 2003 and 2004. He served as the 31st Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps. He is the first Marine Corps aviator to serve as commandant.

As Commandant, Amos opposed the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuals openly serving in the U.S. military. After President Obama signed the legislation setting the conditions for repeal, Amos led the Department of Defense in carrying out the will of the nation's civilian leadership. In late November 2011, Amos stated that his opposition to gays openly serving in the military has proven unfounded and said that Marines have embraced the change, describing the repeal as a "non-event."

1970 – Craig Parker, born in Suva, Fiji, is an actor from New Zealand, known for his roles as Haldir in the films The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and The Two Towers (2002), Darken Rahl in the television series Legend of the Seeker, Stéphane Narcisse in the CW television series Reign, and Gaius Claudius Glaber in the television series Spartacus.He also serves as narrator for New Zealand documentaries. Parker starred in the TVNZ soap Shortland Street, as Guy Warner, a character that has made several return appearances, most recently involving a story where Guy ran off with his brother's wife, Toni, only to return months later as a drug addled loser who attempted to use his daughter to score drugs for him. It ultimately led to the death storyline of Toni Warner. He is the reigning champion of New Zealand's Celebrity Joker Poker.

Parker first publicly discussed being gay in an interview with New Zealand’s Sunday Herald back in 2008. Regarding his sexuality, the very private Parker told the reporter that as a gay man, he doesn’t care what people say about his sexuality and that:

It’s jut not an issue for me. I just don’t get why an actor would want to reveal their secrets, hopes and fears to a magazine or newspaper. I know what the magazine gets out of it, but not the person. If you are doing publicity to increase your self-confidence then you are really in trouble. It’s important to keep some privacy. Your friends and family are the people you reveal yourself to. They are the ones who should have real access to you. 

1976 – Tevin Campbell is an American singer, songwriter and actor. He performed gospel in his local church from an early age. Following an audition for jazz musician Bobbi Humphrey in 1988, Campbell was signed to Warner Bros. Records.

In 1989, Campbell collaborated with Quincy Jones performing lead vocals for "Tomorrow" on Jones' album Back on the Block and released his Platinum-selling debut album, T.E.V.I.N. The album included his highest-charting single to date, "Tell Me What You Want Me to Do", peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

His double-Platinum-selling second album, I'm Ready, released in 1993, included two high-charting songs. In 1996, Campbell released his third album, Back to the World, which was not as commercially or critically successful as his first two releases. His fourth and most recent album, Tevin Campbell, was released in 1999, but performed poorly on Billboard's album charts.

Apart from music, Campbell commenced an acting career, by appearing in the sequel to Prince's Purple Rain named Graffiti Bridge and made guest appearances on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Moesha television programs, voiced fictional pop star Powerline in Disney's A Goofy Movie and was cast as Seaweed in the Broadway musical Hairspray in 2005.

Campbell earned 5 Grammy Award nominations, and he has certified sales of 4.5 million records in the United States, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

Campbell has dealt with speculation of his sexuality for years without directly addressing anything. Campbell had long denied rumors that he was a homosexual but in 1999 was arrested after offering to perform a sexual favor on a male undercover police officer. According to a report released by the Los Angeles Police Department, Campbell, on July 8,1999, he solicited a lewd act from an undercover officer. Also following the arrest, officers recovered a substance resembling marijuana and a pipe containing possible marijuana residue.

In 2018, he has stated that he can't figure out why people are still so interested in whether or not he's gay. There has been rumors that Quincy Jones sexually assaulted him as a minor, which Campbell denied. In 2020, he threatened to file a lawsuit against Jaguar Wright for claims that he had become a sex worker.

1985 – Ben Aldridge is an English actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Thomas Wayne in the crime drama series Pennyworth and "Arsehole Guy" in the tragicomedy series Fleabag.

Having worked with the National Youth Theatre, Aldridge graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art with a bursary from the Genesis Foundation for young actors. He left early to begin filming the 2009 ITV film Compulsion alongside Ray Winstone and Parminder Nagra.

In 2008, Aldridge made his television debut in Channel 4's four-part miniseries The Devil's Whore, playing Harry Fanshawe, husband of the title character. That same year, he was featured on Screen International's "Stars of Tomorrow" list. In addition to First Light, Lewis, Toast and Vera, Aldridge also appeared as Daniel Parish in the BBC One period drama Lark Rise to Candleford. In 2011, the American network The CW cast Aldridge as the lead in the pilot Heavenly. Later on he spent time in Belgrade shooting the partially improvised romance short film In the Night for director Ivana Bobic and award-winning cinematographer Rain Li, alongside supermodel Danijela Dimitrovska.

In 2013, Aldridge starred in Almeida Theatre's production of American Psycho as Paul Owen, opposite Matt Smith as Patrick Bateman. The musical thriller featured a book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa based on Bret Easton Ellis's cult novel, with music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik.

In September 2014, he joined BBC's original drama series Our Girl as Captain Charles James. He is currently the longest serving cast member.

In December 2014, Aldridge joined The CW's series Reign as King Antoine of Navarre.

On 27 June 2020, Aldridge came out as a member of LGBT community on his Instagram.

"The journey to pride was a long one for me. I love the LGBTQ+ community and am incredibly proud and thankful to be a part of it," Aldridge wrote.

The actor also shared some black-and-white photos from historic Pride marches along with a short video showing him kissing a man on the cheek.

1994 – Guillaume Cizeron is a French ice dancer. With his partner, Gabriella Papadakis, he is the 2018 Olympic silver medalist, a four-time World champion (2015–2016, 2018–2019), a five-time consecutive European champion (2015–2019), the 2017 and 2019 Grand Prix Final champion, and a six-time French national champion (2015–2020). They have won ten gold medals on the Grand Prix series. Earlier in their career, they won silver at the 2012 Junior Grand Prix Final and 2013 World Junior Championships.

Papadakis and Cizeron have broken world records 28 times, which is in itself a record across all figure skating disciplines since the introduction of the ISU Judging System in 2004. They are the current and historical world record holders in short/rhythm dance, free dance, and combined total. They are the first team to have broken the 90-point barrier in the rhythm dance, the 120-point and 130-point barriers in the free dance, and the first team to score above the 200-point, 210-point and 220-point barriers in the combined total score.

The pair are recognized for their graceful and balletic style. Their programs, inspired by modern dance, have been described as lyrical, and commentators have frequently acclaimed the quality of their skating skills.

Guillaume Cizeron was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. His father, Marc, is president of the Auvergne Clermont Danse sur Glace skating club.

Cizeron studied fine arts in Lyon before moving to Canada. He relocated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada from France on 14 July 2014, following his coach, Haguenauer.

On 17 May 2020, in honour of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, he came out as gay with a post on Instagram showing him with his boyfriend. He had been out to his family and friends for a while but was convinced his doing so would help people in places that were not as open to LGBTQ people.

While Cizeron had never publicly confirmed his sexuality before recently, he says that he never felt that he was in the closet."It was quite funny, the reaction of people following this photo," he told French LGBTQ magazine Têtu.

"I would not consider myself in the closet before…So I don't really consider it coming out. Even though I have never spoken publicly about my sexual orientation, I am one of those who think that it is not something that community members should have to do."Of the boyfriend: "It's my most serious relationship so far," he said. "We live together, he is French… I will not give too much information and say too much to respect his privacy. What I can say is that he is 33 years old, and we have been together for more than 3 years."

With the pandemic affecting international travel, the ISU opted to assign the Grand Prix based primarily on geographic location, but Papadakis/Cizeron were nonetheless assigned to the 2020 Internationaux de France, necessitating traveling from Canada to France. However, the Internationaux was ultimately cancelled due to the pandemic as well. Both skaters contracted COVID-19 in July of 2019, after contact with a third individual, resulting in them being away from the ice for three weeks.

On November 11, 2020, L'Equipe reported that Papadakis/Cizeron would skip both the French and European championships for that season to focus on the World Championships in Stockholm, citing the difficulty of traveling back and forth between countries frequently.

[howieabel]

“Bouchaud penetratingly observes, “The supposed omniscience and perfect efficacy of a free market stems from economic work done in the 1950s and ’60s, which with hindsight looks more like propaganda against communism than plausible science.” The capitalist ideology that undergirds economics in the United States has led the profession to be detached from reality, rendering it incapable of understanding many of the crises the world faces. Mainstream economics’ obsession with the endless growth of GDP—a measure of “value added,” not of human well-being.” ― John Bellamy Foster, The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth

[diioonysus]

emilie bouchaud(1874-1939), better known by her stage name polaire, was a french singer and actress. she was known for her wasp waist which, achieved through corsetry, reportedly measured less than 16 inches (41 cm), although pictures of her show distinct signs of retouching around the waist, which may mean her waist was much more normal than reported.

[stephaneparede]

Jean Bouchaud

Alger, Place du Gouvernement , 1922

Gouache et aquarelle sur papier

Œuvres sur papier

20 cm x 15 cm

[postcard-from-the-past]

French singer and actress Émilie Marie Bouchaud, known by her stage name Polaire, famous for corsetry

French vintage postcard, mailed to Paris

[detournementsmineurs]

“Paris Police 1900 (Saison 1)” série créé par Fabien Nury (2021) avec Jérémie Laheurte, Évelyne Brochu, Alexandre Trocki, Thibaut Evrard, Marc Barbé, Valérie Dashwood, Eugénie Derouand, Christian Hecq, François Raison, Vincent Debost, Anne Benoît, Hubert Delattre, Anthony Paliotti, Nicolas Bouchaud, Patrick d'Assumçao, Marie-Armelle Deguy, Christophe Montenez et Yann Collette, octobre 2024.

[thedeadleafs]

Polaire (1874-1979)

Polaire was the stage name used by French singer and actress Émilie Marie Bouchaud (14 May 1874 – 14 October 1939).

[byneddiedingo]

Jean de Florette / Manon of the Spring (Claude Berri, 1986)

Cast of Jean de Florette: Yves Montand, Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, Elisabeth Depardieu, Margarita Lozano, Ernestine Mazurowna, Armand Meffre, André Dupon. Cast of Manon of the Spring: Montand, Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart, Hippolyte Girardot, Lozano, Yvonne Gamy, Ticky Holgado, Jean Bouchaud. Screenplay: Claude Berri, Gérard Brach, based on a film and a novel by Marcel Pagnol. Cinematography: Bruno Nuytten. Production design: Bernard Vézat. Film editing: Noëlle Boisson, Sophie Coussein, Hervé de Luze, Jeanne Kef, Annette Langmann, Corinne Lazare, Catherine Serris. Music: Jean-Claude Petit. 

There's no good reason why Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring should have been two films rather than one. They were shot together over the course of seven months, but released separately, Manon following Jean after about three months. Shown together as one film, they would total some 230 minutes -- only a bit longer than Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959) at 212 minutes or Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) at 222 minutes. But the length of those films seems consistent with their epic pretensions, whereas Jean/Manon together amount to a domestic melodrama -- an entertaining one, with a beautiful Provençal setting, but far from an epic. Their separate releases feel a bit like a con -- as in economics. Films of that blockbuster length are a drag on the exhibitor, who must schedule fewer showings per day, so it probably made sense to release Jean, which unabashedly announces at the end that it's "part one," to whet an appetite for Manon, whose posters announced it as the second part of Jean de Florette. Voilà! double the box office take. In fact, Manon of the Spring had been filmed before, by Marcel Pagnol in 1952, and it had been a long film, as much as four hours, before being cut by the distributor. Pagnol was so upset by this experience that he turned the screenplay into a novel, L'Eau des Collines, adding the story of Manon's father, Jean, which had been only a backstory in his film. And it's this novel that Claude Berri decided to adapt into his two films. The problem I see, having just watched Berri's films back to back, is that there's not quite enough material for two. Jean de Florette is an overextended prequel, introducing the characters of César Soubeyran (Yves Montand) and his nephew Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil), and their villainous attempt to cut off the water supply to Jean (Gérard Depardieu), the newcomer who inherits the estate they covet. Or perhaps Manon of the Spring is a thinly developed sequel, in which Jean's daughter, Manon (Emmanuelle Béart), avenges her father. If Jean had been trimmed of some of the scenes of Jean raising rabbits and Manon of some of the shots of Manon gamboling with her goats in the hills -- as well as the romantic subplot involving the new village schoolteacher (Hippolyte Girardot) -- both stories could have fitted nicely into one movie. Manon climaxes with a scene in which César learns an uncomfortable truth about Jean's parentage, but Berri and co-screenwriter Gérard Brach drag the film out after that revelation, which should have been left to make its impact. Still, Berri's films have much to recommend them, especially the performances of Montand, Auteuil, and Depardieu (the last is sorely missed in the second film) and the beautiful cinematography of Bruno Nuytten. Jean-Claude Petit's score makes good use of themes from the overture to Giuseppe Verdi's La Forza del Destino.  

[monkeyssalad-blog]

Polaire by Truus, Bob & Jan too! Via Flickr: French postcard, no. 8307. Photo: H. Manuel. Publicity still for the stage play Claudine à Paris (1902) at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens. Collection: Didier Hanson. French singer and actress Polaire (1874-1939) had a career in the entertainment industry which stretched from the early 1890s to the mid-1930s, and encompassed the range from music-hall singer to stage and film actress. Her most successful period professionally was from the mid-1890s to the beginning of the First World War. Polaire was a French singer and actress, born Émilie Marie Bouchaud on May 14, 1874 in Agha (Algeria). According to her memoirs she was one of eleven children of whom only four survived – and eventually only two, Émilie and her brother Edmond. When her father died of typhoid her mother temporarily placed the children under the care of Polaire’s grandmother in Algiers. In 1891, at age 17 she came to Paris to join her brother Edmond who performed there in the café-concerts under the name of Dufleuve. She had already sung in cafes in Algiers and continued on this path, eventually becoming a popular music-hall singer and dancer, performing e.g. the French version of Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay: Tha ma ra boum di hé - her greatest success, already from the start. She became a big name and was e.g. portrayed by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the magazine Le Rire in 1895. Not only her singing and dancing qualities were remarkable, Polaire also distinguished herself by her particular physique, having an exceptional wasp waist, at a time when women tortured themselves with tight corsets to refine their waist. After a first failed attempt to conquer New York as singer, Polaire returned to Paris where she expanded her range with prose theatre as well. She managed to get the role of Claudine in Colette’s play Claudine à Paris, performed at the Bouffes-Parisiens in 1902 and again performed in the US in 1910. This time she was a big hit in the US and came back loaded with money. Her obtaining of the part of Claudine was not so easy, Polaire writes in her memoirs, as Willy at the time reclaimed the rights of Colette’s novels, and didn’t consider this music-hall singer as fit for this serious part. But a dashing and headstrong Polaire managed to convince Willy in person that she was Claudine, so she got the part. Claudine à Paris was performed some 120 times in France, with great success. Colette herself was very satisfied about the result. Willy even managed to exploit the success by a whole line of merchandising. Afterwards Polaire would consider him her substitute father. From 1909, Polaire appeared in several film roles. After two films at Pathé frères, Moines et guerriers (Nuns and warriors, Julien Clément) and La tournée des grand-ducs (The Grandduke’s Tour, Léonce Perret 1910) – in the latter she aptly played a dancer - she went to Germany to play a Cuban lady in Zouza (Reinhard Bruck, 1911), in which future film director Richard Oswald was one of her co-stars. Back in France she acted again at Pathé in Le visiteur (The Visitor, Albert Capellani, René Leprince, 1911), but she mostly was active at the Éclair film company between 1911 and 1914, starting with Le poison de l’humanité (The Poison of Humanity, Émile Chautard, Victorin Jasset, 1911). From 1912 to 1914 she did a series of six films with then young and upcoming film director Maurice Tourneur, working for Éclair: Les gaîtés de l'escadron (The Funny Regiment, 1913), based on the novel by Georges Courteline; Le dernier pardon (1913), a comedy written by Gyp; La dame de Monsoreau (1913), after Dumas père; Le Friquet (1914), after Gyp and with Polaire in the title role; Soeurette (The Sparrow, 1914); and the mystery film Monsieur Lecoq (1914), after Émile Gaboriau. Her copartners in these films were often Maurice de Féraudy, Charles Krauss, Henry Roussel and Renée Sylvaire. Le Friquet was restored by the Cinémathèque française in the mid-1990s and shown in international festivals It deals with a poor trapeze worker who loses her lover to a rich, immoral lady and then commits suicide during her trapeze act. It was based on a play Polaire had performed herself in 1904. NB IMDB mixes up things by not making a distinction between Polaire and Pauline Polaire. In the 1920s a younger actress named Giulietta Gozzi (1904-1986), niece of the Italian diva Hesperia (Olga Mambelli), performed under the name of Pauline Polaire in several Italian silent films with the forzuti such as Maciste and Saetta. Polaire became a wealthy lady with a house on the Champs-Elysées and a country house in the Var, Villa Claudine. Well into the 1920s she continued to gamble away huge fortunes. After World War I, Polaire dedicated herself primarily to the stage. During her career, she recorderd many of her songs as Tha ma ra boum di hé (her greatest success, already from the start), La Glu (based on a poem by Jean Richepin), Tchique tchique by Vincent Scotto, the telephone song Allo ! Chéri!, song with her partner Marjal, and she recited Charlotte prays to Our Lady by Jehan Rictus. Polaire died October 11, 1939 at age 65 in Champigny-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne). "Mademoiselle Polaire" is cited by the Guinness Book of Records as co-holder (with the British Ethel Granger) of the thinnest waist of 33 cm. She herself says in her memoirs to have repeatedly circled her waist by a fake collar of the "normal size” of 41 or 42 cm. Polaire posed for various painters such as Antonio de La Gandara, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Leonetto Cappiello, Rupert Carabin and John / Juan Sala. The latter became in 1893 the portraitist of Parisian society. His life-sized portrait of Polaire (1910) was auctioned at Drouot's in Paris on 28 June 2016. Sources: English, French and Dutch Wikipedia, IMDB, deesk.pagesperso-orange.fr/polaire-1900/c_polaire_biograp..., www.dutempsdescerisesauxfeuillesmortes.net/fiches_bio/pol....