Yvette Guilbert (French pronunciation: ​[ivÉ›t gilbÉ›Ê ]; 20 January
1865 â€" 3 February 1944) was a French cabaret singer and actress of
the Belle Époque.Born in Paris into a poor family as Emma Laure
Esther Guilbert, Guilbert began singing as a child but at age sixteen
worked as a model at the Printemps department store in Paris. She was
discovered by a journalist. She took acting and diction lessons, which
enabled her in 1886 to appear on stage at several smaller venues.
Guilbert debuted at the Variette Theatre in 1888. She eventually sang
at the popular Eldorado club, then at the Jardin de Paris before
headlining in Montmartre at the Moulin Rouge in 1890. The English
painter William Rothenstein described this performance in his first
volume of memoirs:For her act, she was usually dressed in bright
yellow with long gloves and stood almost perfectly still, gesturing
with her long arms as she sang. An innovator, she favored
monologue-like "patter songs" (as they came to be called) and was
often billed as a "diseuse" or "sayer". The lyrics (some of them her
own) were raunchy; their subjects were tragedy, lost love, and the
Parisian poverty from which she had come. During the 1890s she
appeared regularly alongside another star of the time, Kam-Hill, often
singing songs by Tarride. 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. She was noted
in France, England, and the United States at the beginning of the
twentieth century for her songs and imitations of the common people of
France. Author Patrick Bade believed that Guilbret "derived her
trademark black gloves form Pornocrates" a famous painting by
symbolist artist Félicien Rops. Yvette Guilbert Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter