Mistinguett [ Jeanne-Marie Bourgeois ] (1875–1956), Flemish-born French music-hall artist, with beautiful (and highly insured) legs, mischievous good looks, and a smart line in repartee. ‘Miss’, as she was nicknamed, was a symbol of Paris to millions of tourists, and even to Parisians themselves, for over half a century.
In her early years she was an eccentric comedienne, specializing in character sketches of low-life Parisian women, but, reversing the usual pattern, she later became almost exclusively a dancer and singer, appearing first at the Moulin Rouge, of which she was for some time part-proprietor, and, with Maurice Chevalier as her partner, at the Folies-Bergère, where she was seen in some sensational dances, descending with superb panache vast staircases, wearing enormous hats and trailing yards of feathered train.
She became world famous in spite of hardly ever appearing outside Paris, her one appearance in London being at the London Casino (later the Prince Edward Theatre) in 1947 at the age of 72.
How to cite this entry: "Mistinguett" The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Ed. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found. Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. 24 January 2012
