La Goulue
La Goulue (French: " the glutton " ), actually Louise Weber ( born July 12, 1866 in Clichy, † January 30, 1929 in Paris) was a French can-can dancer and lion tamer.
La Goulue was beside Grille d' egout, Nini Patte- en- l'Air and their known partners such as Valentin le Désossé, Fil de Fer or Pomme d' Amour, the Queen of the Cancan and the Chahut.
Beginnings as a dancer
Louise Weber was originally laundress and began in 1880 with fourteen years of her career as a dancer in the night life of Paris. She appeared in the Nouveau Cirque and danced the quadrille at the Ambassadeur, the Alcazar d' Hiver and the Elysée Ménilmontant. In the years 1882-1895 she performed regularly at the Elysée Ménilmontant. With her sister Victorine, the "Gazelle" was called, she went often to a duet.
Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec met her for the first time in 1891 at the Moulin de la Galette. He said about La Goulue:
Through the man of her sister, she learned the fair milieu know. Even at this time began working with predators. In the Bal Bullier she made the acquaintance with her future dance partner Valentin le Désossé ( Valentin the Boneless, bürgerl. Etienne name Renaudin, 1843-1907 ). Known from this period around 1895 is the poster of the artist Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec, the Valentin shows in the foreground almost a silhouette, while one can see the dancing Goulue under the swirling skirts. She was also the painter Goupil model. Henri de Toulouse -Lautrec Poster Moulin Rouge, La Goulue from 1891 reminiscent of the legendary performances of La Goulue, which was able to maintain for five years as a crowd favorite at the Moulin Rouge. She wowed the audience with their special dance ideas. The great chanteuse Yvette Guilbert writes about it in her memoirs:
World fame
On January 12, 1889 committed Fernando La Goulue for the news -Revue De Selle. At the Moulin de la Galette, she played the role of a Klatschweibes ( Commère ) in a review of Victor Douailhac and Henri Weill. With its commitment at the Moulin Rouge, which opened in the Paris World Exhibition on October 6, 1889, she received as "pure you quadrille " ( Queen of the quadrille ) worldwide fame. At the Moulin Rouge, she joined up in 1895, with interruptions.
On April 11, 1893 her dance was a great success for the opening of Joseph Ollers new Music Hall Olympia on the Boulevard des Capucines. La Goulue performed in salons and on the Opera Ball and danced her world famous quadrille with her dance partner Valentin and Môme Fromage, her friend and lover. In 1895 she left the Moulin Rouge and bought on the Foire du TRÖ a fairground stall. La Goulue showed here oriental dances, which she called La Goulue s almée.
Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec painted on her request, the wooden panels that were mounted on the right and left of the entrance of their Carnival Booth. The left -placed from the entrance curtain showed a scene from days gone by in a ballroom at Montmartre. In the middle was La Goulue, the upper body slightly bent forward, just about to gather up her skirts up. On the right side it is with an " oriental dance " mapped, with whom she performed in their fairground booth.
Tamer
1898 she moved with her shack to Neuilly and married on May 10, 1900 the artists José Nicole Droxler. With her husband she now worked as Raubtierbändigerin and moved from fair to fair. Most recently she appeared on 30 November 1917 in a revue of Rip and Henri Varna at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, in a production of Léon Balterra.
La Goulue then lived in a fairground caravan in the Parisian suburb of Saint- Ouen. She died on 30 January 1929 in a hospital in Paris.