| Polaire | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 14, 1874 Agha, Algiers, Algeria |
| Died | October 19, 1939 (aged 65) Champigny-sur-Marne, Val-de-Marne, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Other names | Émilie Marie Bouchaud |
| Occupation | Singer and actress |
Polaire was the stage name used by French singer and actress Émilie Marie Bouchaud (May 14, 1874 – October 14, 1939).
Born at Agha, Algiers, Algeria,[1] according to her memoirs she was one of eleven children of whom only four - Emilie, her two brothers Edmond and Marcel, and a sister, Lucile - survived infancy. Their father died of typhoid fever when Emilie was five and their mother, unable to support them alone, placed them with their grandmother in Algiers. Marcel died shortly after. Her mother having begun a relationship with a man named Emmanuel Borgia (whom Polaire accuses in her memoirs of attempting to molest her), the family moved to Paris in 1889, where her mother found work. She also tried to find employment for her daughter but eventually, after Lucile had died, Emilie was sent back to her grandmother in Algiers. She did not settle, and in September 1890 ran away to rejoin her mother in France; but afraid of meeting up with her mother's partner, Borgia, she first approached her brother Edmond who had gained some fame as a café-concert singer under the name of Dufleuve. With his help she auditioned successfully and won her first job as a café singer aged about 17.[2][3][4]
Adopting the stage name Polaire,[5] she worked as a music-hall singer and dancer; in 1895, her fame increased significantly when Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's sketch of her appeared in the satirical magazine Le Rire; in 1900, attention grew again, when her portrait was painted by Leonetto Cappiello.
Polaire went on to act in the theatre. Her first major appearance was in 1902, at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens, in the title role of a play based on Colette's Claudine à Paris. A gifted comedic actress, she became one of the major celebrities of her day.
At a time when tightlacing among women was in vogue, she was famous for her tiny, corsetted waist, which was reported to have a circumference no greater than 14 inches (360 mm). This accentuated her large bust, which was said to measure 38 inches (970 mm). She stood 5 feet 3 inches (1.60 m) tall. Talk of her figure and her lavish overdressing in fur coats and dazzling jewels preceded her appearances wherever she went. Jean Lorrain said of her,
| “ | Polaire! The agitating and agitated Polaire! The tiny slip of a woman that you know, with the waist slender to the point of pain, of screaming out loud, of breaking in two, in a spasmically tight bodice, the prettiest slimness ... And, under the aureole of an extravagant masher's hat, orange and plumed with iris leaves, the great voracious mouth, the immense black eyes, ringed, bruised, discoloured, the incandescence of her pupils, the bewildered nocturnal hair, the phosphorus, the sulphur, the red pepper of that ghoulish, Salome-like face, the agitating and agitated Polaire! What a devilish mimic, what a coffee-mill and what a belly-dancer! Yellow skirt tucked high, gloved in open-work stockings, Polaire skips, flutters, wriggles, arches from the hips, the back, the belly, mimes every kind of shock, twists, coils, rears, twirls...trembling like a stuck wasp, miaows, faints to what music and what words! The house, frozen with stupor, forgets to applaud. |
” |
Polaire wore her hair short, unusual in women before the 1920s: she apparently adopted the style in the 1890s. In 1910 she appeared for the first time in London[6] and shortly afterwards in June opened in New York,[7] although this may not have been her debut there.[8] In 1911, she was cast her in her first silent-film role. In the next year, she was offered a role in a film by the up-and-coming young director Maurice Tourneur; she appeared in six of his films in 1912 and 1913. She then returned to the musical stage and began a tour of the United States (garnering some publicity by wearing a nose-piercing),[9] after which she appeared at the London Coliseum. Polaire returned to films in 1922; she performed in ten between then and 1935, some of them talkies.
She died in 1939, at age sixty-five, at Champigny-sur-Marne, Val-de-Marne, France;[1] her body was buried at the Cimetière du Centre, in the eastern Paris suburb of Champigny-sur-Marne.[10]