Actress and singer Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois – born April 4, 1875, in Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d’Oise, Île-de-France, France – was better known by her stage name Mistinguett. Nicknamed ‘Queen’ and ‘Empress of the Music Hall,’ during her heyday, she was the highest-paid female entertainer in the world. When she was young, her family moved to Soisy-sous-Montmorency where she became interested in becoming an entertainer. She took singing and violin lessons and would sing while she sold blossoms in a restaurant. When she was 15, she met Casino De Paris director Saint-Marcel, who hired her as a stagehand. Gradually moving into entertaining, she made her live debut on December 5, 1893, performing “La Môme du Casino.” In order to gain more attention, she went through several stage names before settling on Mistinguett. She performed at the Trianon-Concert in 1894 but didn’t come to prominence until she refined her image – a short, boyish haircut – and adapted a more comedic, cheeky voice when she performed at the Eldorado theater in Paris between 1897 and 1907. She then took her popular stage act to the Moulin-Rouge in July 1907, where she became a success in several different shows. Thanks to her comedic style and risqué shows, Mistinguett became the highest paid female entertainer in the world and had her legs insured for good measure. In 1912, she met singer, actor, and entertainer Maurice Chevalier and began a decade long relationship with him. She made her film debut in the 1908 silent motion picture L’Empreinte ou La main rouge and would appear in many films over the next four decades. Mistinguett died on January 5, 1956, at the age of 82. Since her death, her recordings have been compiled onto many releases including Ciné-Stars : Mistinguett (1993), J'Suis Nature (2000), Mistinguett - The Empress of the Music-Hall (2005), La Reine du Music-Hall (2019), and Mistinguett la Vedette (2022).
