Мистинге́тт: Францу́зская певи́ца и актриса́

French actress and singer

Mistinguett (mistɛ̃ɡɛt, born Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois; 5 April 1873 – 5 January 1956) was a French actress and singer. She was at one time the highest paid female entertainer in the world.

The daughter of Antoine Bourgeois, a 31 year old day labourer, and Jeannette Debrée, a 21 year old seamstress, Jeanne Bourgeois was born at 5 Rue du Chemin de Fer (today Rue Gaston Israël), in Enghien les Bains, Val d'Oise, Île de France, France. The family moved to Soisy sous Montmorency where she spent her childhood; her parents later worked as mattress makers. At an early age Bourgeois aspired to be an entertainer. She began as a flower seller in a restaurant in her hometown, singing popular ballads as she sold blossoms.

After taking classes in theatre and singing, she began her career as an entertainer in 1885. One day on the train to Paris for a violin lesson, she met Saint Marcel, who directed the revue at the Casino de Paris. He engaged her first as a stage hand, and here she began to pursue her goal to become an entertainer, experimenting with various stage names, being successively Miss Helyett, Miss Tinguette, Mistinguette and, finally, Mistinguett. In the 1880s Mistinguett visited her neighbour Anna Thibaud to ask for advice. Thibaud told her, "To succeed in the theatre you must be pretty. You must excite men." Mistinguett asked if she meant that she had to excite the crowds. Thibaud repeated, "No, the men!" Bourgeois made her debut as Mistinguett at the Casino de Paris in 1895 and went on to appear in venues such as the Folies Bergère, Moulin Rouge and Eldorado. Her risqué routines captivated Paris, and she went on to become the most popular French entertainer of her time and the highest paid female entertainer in the world, known for her flamboyance and a zest for the theatrical. She also had a long relationship with Maurice Chevalier, 13 years her junior. It is claimed that she and Chevalier informed the police in 1940 that singer songwriter Charles Trenet was gay and consorting with youths. She first recorded her signature song, "Mon Homme", in 1916. It was popularised under its English title "My Man" by Fanny Brice and has become a standard in the repertoire of numerous pop and jazz singers. During a tour of the United States, Mistinguett was asked by Time magazine to explain her popularity. Her answer was, "It is a kind of magnetism. I say 'Come closer' and draw them to me."

Mistinguett died in Bougival, France, at the age of 82, attended by her son, a doctor. She is buried in the Cimetière Enghien les Bains, Île de France, France. Upon her death, writer Jean Cocteau observed in an obituary, "Her voice, slightly off key, was that of the Parisian street hawkers—the husky, trailing voice of the Paris people. She was of the animal race that owes nothing to intellectualism. She incarnated herself. She flattered a French patriotism that was not shameful. It is normal now that she should crumble, like the other caryatids of that great and marvelous epoch that was ours".