La Goulue (circa 1925)

La Goulue (Louise Weber - 1866-1927), the famed Moulin Rouge dancer, doing a fragment of the Cancan at nearly 60 years of age. She was many times painted by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec among others. and was a prominent figure of the demi-mode of late C19 Paris. This is a longer extract from the footage.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• dance
• cancan
• la
• goulue
• moulin
• rouge
• henri
• de
• toulouse-lautrec
• silent
• film
• vintage
• music
• hall

[Fronika]

She had it once and she didn't lose it. The old gal still had style.

[nickwallacesmith]

hi Fronika - didn't she just!

[thelemongirl01]

@Edward245100 Well you sound like a very happy person

[Edward245100]

How do you get to be "nearly 60" and look such a mess, poverty stricken or not. The fact is that no "artist" of the Moulin Rouge was ever anything but a tramp and those who frequented it were depraved misfits, despised by proper French society. Toulouse-Lautrec was a miserable wretch too and not much of a painter if you ask me.

[nickwallacesmith]

hi again tousamis ... (cont)

'The Hôtel de La Païva ("Mansion of La Païva") was built between 1856 and 1865 at 25 Avenue des Champs-Élysées by the courtesan Thérèse Lachman, better known as La Païva. She was born in modest circumstances in the Moscow ghetto, of Polish parents. By successive marriages, she became a Portuguese marchioness and a Prussian countess, this last marriage supplying the funds for the hôtel, at which she gave fabulous feasts.'

[nickwallacesmith]

hi tousamis. thanks for identifying la goulue's home - the riches to rags is not such an uncommon tale - i saw a US doco recently which investigated the weathy who now live on the street, in their cars, and so on i was just reading ... (cont.) ...

[tousamis]

@nickwallacesmith

true, very surreal. Her townhouse was l'Hotel de la Paiva, 25 avenue des Champs-élysée. It would cost several millions of dollars today. Her fall reminds me of silent star Mae Murray who lost her fortune in the late 1920s and became a vagrant. Once she had villas and appartments, cars, jewels, then she had nothing. She lived for a while in a maid's room in a building, the Café des artistes, near Central Park, where she had once had a luxurious appartment.

[nickwallacesmith]

@tousamis - yes, there's a photo i have of her in her carriage outside this rather larger house on the Champs Elysées - and to end selling cigarettes in the street round the corner from le moulin rouge is rather surreal

[tousamis]

@Memale2009

elle fut très riche à une époque mais dilapida sa fortune.... mais en effet, il n'y avait ni aide sociale ni retraite pour ces artistes à l'époque, leur vie était précaire à moins de faire un mariage d'argent ou de toucher un héritage. Elle me fait penser à Kiki de Montparnasse qui devint clocharde après avoir été la muse de bien des artistes. C'est triste en effet.

[tousamis]

@nickwallacesmith

yes, she had been very rich and had a townhouse on the Champs Elysées but she spent everything and ended her life in misery.