Born: 20 January 1865, France
Died: 3 February 1944
Country most active: France
Also known as: NA
Yvette Guilbert was a French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque, who also starred in several early films, from 1919 to 1936. Onstage, she usually dressed in bright yellow with long gloves, standing almost perfectly still, gesturing with her long arms as she sang. Ahead of her time, she favored monologue-style “patter songs” and was frequently billed as a “diseuse” or “sayer”. The lyrics (often her own) were raunchy, and delved into subjects like tragedy, lost love, and the Parisian poverty of her childhood. Guilbert broke and reinvented the rules of music hall performance with her audacious lyrics, and the audiences loved her. She was acclaimed in France, England, and the United States in the early 1900s for her songs and imitations of France’s common people.