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Barbette (performer)
Encyclopedia
Barbette was an American female impersonator, high wire
performer and trapeze
artist born in Texas
on December 19, 1899. Barbette attained great popularity throughout the United States but his greatest fame came in Europe and especially Paris, in the 1920s and 1930s.
Barbette began performing as an aerialist
at around the age of 14 as one-half of a circus act called The Alfaretta Sisters. After a few years of circus work, Barbette went solo and adopted his exotic-sounding pseudonym
. He performed in full drag
, revealing himself as male only at the end of his act.
Following a career-ending illness or injury, Barbette returned to Texas but continued to work as a consultant for motion pictures and training and choreographing aerial acts for a number of circuses. After years of dealing with chronic pain, Barbette committed suicide on August 5, 1973. Both in life and following his death, Barbette served as an inspiration to a number of artists, including Jean Cocteau
and Man Ray
.
, although Barbette himself gave his birthplace as Trickem. There is some confusion as to the name of Barbette's father. On a 1923 passport application, Barbette lists his father's name as "Henry Broadway" and notes him as deceased. However, Barbette's death certificate gives his father's first name as "Jeff." The death certificate lists his mother's name as "Hattie Wilson;" Barbette listed her name as "Mrs. E. S. Loving" on his passport application.
Barbette's mother took him to the circus at an early age in Austin
and he was fascinated by the wire act. "The first time she took me to the circus in Austin, I knew I would be a performer, and from then on I'd work in the fields during the cotton-picking season to earn money in order to go to the circus as often as possible." Barbette practiced for hours by walking along his mother's steel clothes line. He graduated from high school at the age of 14.
After high school, Barbette began his circus career as one-half of the aerialist
team The Alfaretta Sisters. One of the sisters had died unexpectedly and Barbette answered the surviving sister's ad for a replacement, auditioning in San Antonio
. Together the pair decided that it was more dramatic for a woman to perform the acrobatic stunts. "She told me that women's clothes always make a wire act more impressive...and she asked me if I'd mind dressing as a girl. I didn't; and that's how it began." Following his time as an Alfaretta, Barbette next joined an act called Erford's Whirling Sensation. This act included three people who hung from a spinning apparatus by their teeth. He then developed his solo act and moved to the vaudeville
stage. He took on the name "Barbette", believing that it had an exotic French sound and because it could conceivably be either a first or a last name. His solo debut was at the Harlem Opera House in 1919. Barbette performed trapeze and wire stunts in full drag, maintaining the illusion of femininity until the end of his act, when he would pull off his wig and strike exaggerated masculine poses. For the next several years he toured the Keith Vaudeville Circuit, advertised as a "versatile specialty."
first to England and then to Paris. He appeared in such venues as the Casino de Paris
, the Moulin Rouge
, the Empire, the Médrano Circus, the Alhambra Theater and the Folies Bergère.
He returned to America in 1924 to appear in The Passing Show of 1924, which ran for four months beginning in September. Also in this timeframe he became a featured attraction with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
and toured London, Brussels and Berlin. It was during an engagement at the London Palladium
that Barbette was found engaged in sexual activity with another man. His contract was cancelled and he was never able to obtain a work permit for England again.
Barbette was championed by avante garde artist Jean Cocteau
. Cocteau wrote in 1923 to Belgian
friend and critic Paul Collaer
:
In 1926 Cocteau wrote an influential essay on the nature and artifice of the theatre called Le Numéro Barbette that was published in Nouvelle Revue Française
. In this essay, Cocteau celebrates Barbette as an exemplar of theatrical artifice. Barbette, writes Cocteau, transforms effortlessly back and forth between man and woman. His female glamour and elegance Cocteau likens to a cloud of dust thrown into the eyes of the audience, blinding it to the masculinity of the movements he needs to perform his acrobatics. That blindness is so complete that at the end of his act, Barbette does not simply remove his wig but instead "plays the part of a man. He rolls his shoulders, stretches his hands, swells his muscles...And after the fifteenth or so curtain call, he gives a mischievous wink, shifts from foot to foot, mimes a bit of an apology, and does a shuffling little street urchin dance -- all of it to erase the fabulous, dying-swan impression left by the act." Cocteau calls upon his fellow artists to incorporate deliberately this effect that he believes for Barbette is instinctive. Cocteau commissioned a series of photographs of Barbette by the Surrealist
artist Man Ray
, which captured not only aspects of Barbette's performance but also his process of transformation into his female persona.
Cocteau cast Barbette in his experimental film
Le Sang d'un Poete
(The Blood of a Poet) (1930
), Cocteau's first film. Barbette appears in a scene in a theatre box with several extras, dressed in Chanel
gowns, who burst into applause at the sight of a card game that ends in suicide. He replaced the Vicomtesse de Noailles, who along with her husband had originally shot the scene but were appalled upon seeing the finished film, as the card game/suicide had been shot separately. Speaking of his preparation for the scene, Barbette, who knew he was replacing the Vicomtesse, said:
Cocteau fell in love with the Barbette persona but their affair was short-lived. Others in Barbette's European circle included Josephine Baker
, Anton Dolin
, Mistinguett
and Sergei Diaghilev
.
Barbette is credited with having returned to the United States in 1935 to star on Broadway
in the Billy Rose
circus musical Jumbo
. However, some sources suggest that this may have been a Barbette impersonator.
, polio
or some combination of the three. All generally agree that whatever the cause, Barbette was left in extreme pain and in need of surgery and extensive rehabilitation to allow him to walk again. He became the artistic director and aerialist trainer for a number of circuses, including Ringling Bros. and the Shrine Circus
. His work with Ringling Bros. has been described as "reinvent[ing] the aerial ballet". The Bird Cage Girls, The Swing High Girls, The Whirl Girls and the Cloud Swing Girls were among the female aerielist troupes whose routines were Barbette's specialty. Barbette served as a consultant on a number of films, including the circus sequences for Till the Clouds Roll By
(1946
) and The Big Circus
(1959
), and was hired to coach Jack Lemmon
and Tony Curtis
on gender illusion for the film Some Like It Hot
(1959). Cocteau biographer Francis Steegmuller wrote a profile of Barbette for The New Yorker
in 1969 entitled "An Angel, A Flower, A Bird". He created the circus sequences for the Orson Welles
-produced Broadway musical Around the World
. Barbette created the aerial ballet for Disney on Parade
and toured with it in Australia from 1969 through 1972.
Barbette spent his last months in Texas, living in Round Rock and Austin
with his sister, Mary Cahill, often in severe pain. He committed suicide by overdose on August 5, 1973. He was survived by his sister Mary and a half-brother, Sam Loving. Barbette was cremated and his ashes were buried in Round Rock Cemetery.
based a character in the 1930
film Murder!
on Barbette. Different Fleshes is a book-length poem about Barbette written by Albert Goldbarth
. It won the Voertman Poetry Award from the Texas Institute of Letters
. In 1993, performance art
ist John Kelly, under commission from the Brooklyn Academy of Music
, based his piece Light Shall Lift Them on him. Barbette's story is also told in the play Barbette, written by Bill Lengfelder and David Goodwin and first presented in Dallas, Texas
in 2003.
Barbette may have been the inspiration for the 1933
German film Viktor und Viktoria
, which features a plot about a woman pretending to be a female impersonator whose gimmick of removing her wig at the end of her act is "inspired by [Barbette's] signature gesture." Viktor und Viktoria was remade in 1935
(First a Girl
), 1957
(Viktor und Viktoria) and 1982
(Victor Victoria, which inspired a 1992 Broadway musical of the same name
).
A French restaurant in Minneapolis is named Barbette, after the aerialist.
Tightrope walking
Tightrope walking is the art of walking along a thin wire or rope, usually at a great height. One or more artists performs in front of an audience or as a publicity stunt...
performer and trapeze
Trapeze
A trapeze is a short horizontal bar hung by ropes or metal straps from a support. It is an aerial apparatus commonly found in circus performances...
artist born in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
on December 19, 1899. Barbette attained great popularity throughout the United States but his greatest fame came in Europe and especially Paris, in the 1920s and 1930s.
Barbette began performing as an aerialist
Acrobatics
Acrobatics is the performance of extraordinary feats of balance, agility and motor coordination. It can be found in many of the performing arts, as well as many sports...
at around the age of 14 as one-half of a circus act called The Alfaretta Sisters. After a few years of circus work, Barbette went solo and adopted his exotic-sounding pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
. He performed in full drag
Drag (clothing)
Drag is used for any clothing carrying symbolic significance but usually referring to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender. The origin of the term "drag" is unknown, but it may have originated in Polari, a gay street argot in England in the early...
, revealing himself as male only at the end of his act.
Following a career-ending illness or injury, Barbette returned to Texas but continued to work as a consultant for motion pictures and training and choreographing aerial acts for a number of circuses. After years of dealing with chronic pain, Barbette committed suicide on August 5, 1973. Both in life and following his death, Barbette served as an inspiration to a number of artists, including Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
and Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
.
Early life and career
Barbette (birth name cited as Vander Clyde and Vander Clyde Broadway) was born on December 19, 1899 (although it is sometimes cited as 1904) in Texas. Most sources indicate he was born in Round RockRound Rock, Texas
Round Rock is a city in Travis and Williamson counties in the U.S. state of Texas. It is part of the metropolitan area. The 2010 census places the population at 99,887....
, although Barbette himself gave his birthplace as Trickem. There is some confusion as to the name of Barbette's father. On a 1923 passport application, Barbette lists his father's name as "Henry Broadway" and notes him as deceased. However, Barbette's death certificate gives his father's first name as "Jeff." The death certificate lists his mother's name as "Hattie Wilson;" Barbette listed her name as "Mrs. E. S. Loving" on his passport application.
Barbette's mother took him to the circus at an early age in Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
and he was fascinated by the wire act. "The first time she took me to the circus in Austin, I knew I would be a performer, and from then on I'd work in the fields during the cotton-picking season to earn money in order to go to the circus as often as possible." Barbette practiced for hours by walking along his mother's steel clothes line. He graduated from high school at the age of 14.
After high school, Barbette began his circus career as one-half of the aerialist
Acrobatics
Acrobatics is the performance of extraordinary feats of balance, agility and motor coordination. It can be found in many of the performing arts, as well as many sports...
team The Alfaretta Sisters. One of the sisters had died unexpectedly and Barbette answered the surviving sister's ad for a replacement, auditioning in San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
. Together the pair decided that it was more dramatic for a woman to perform the acrobatic stunts. "She told me that women's clothes always make a wire act more impressive...and she asked me if I'd mind dressing as a girl. I didn't; and that's how it began." Following his time as an Alfaretta, Barbette next joined an act called Erford's Whirling Sensation. This act included three people who hung from a spinning apparatus by their teeth. He then developed his solo act and moved to the vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
stage. He took on the name "Barbette", believing that it had an exotic French sound and because it could conceivably be either a first or a last name. His solo debut was at the Harlem Opera House in 1919. Barbette performed trapeze and wire stunts in full drag, maintaining the illusion of femininity until the end of his act, when he would pull off his wig and strike exaggerated masculine poses. For the next several years he toured the Keith Vaudeville Circuit, advertised as a "versatile specialty."
The toast of Europe
Barbette made his European debut in 1923, having been sent by the William Morris AgencyWilliam Morris Agency
WME is the largest talent agency in the world, with offices in Beverly Hills, New York City, Nashville, London, and Miami. WME represents elite artists from all facets of the entertainment industry, including motion pictures, television, music, theatre, publishing, and physical production...
first to England and then to Paris. He appeared in such venues as the Casino de Paris
Casino de Paris
The Casino de Paris, located at 16, rue de Clichy, in the 9th arrondissement is one of the well known music halls of Paris, with a history dating back to the 18th century. Contrary to what the name might suggest, it is a performance venue, not a gambling house...
, the Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge is a cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. Close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche.The Moulin Rouge is...
, the Empire, the Médrano Circus, the Alhambra Theater and the Folies Bergère.
He returned to America in 1924 to appear in The Passing Show of 1924, which ran for four months beginning in September. Also in this timeframe he became a featured attraction with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is an American circus company. The company was started when the circus created by James Anthony Bailey and P. T. Barnum was merged with the Ringling Brothers Circus. The Ringling brothers purchased the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907, but ran the circuses...
and toured London, Brussels and Berlin. It was during an engagement at the London Palladium
London Palladium
The London Palladium is a 2,286 seat West End theatre located off Oxford Street in the City of Westminster. From the roster of stars who have played there and many televised performances, it is arguably the most famous theatre in London and the United Kingdom, especially for musical variety...
that Barbette was found engaged in sexual activity with another man. His contract was cancelled and he was never able to obtain a work permit for England again.
Barbette was championed by avante garde artist Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
. Cocteau wrote in 1923 to Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
friend and critic Paul Collaer
Paul Collaer
Paul Collaer was a Flemish Belgian musicologist, pianist, and conductor. He studied piano at the conservatory in Mechelen and also studied physics, receiving a doctorate from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He was a strong advocate of modern music and founded the Pro-Arte concerts in Brussels...
:
"Next week in Brussels, you'll see a music-hall act called 'Barbette' that has been keeping me enthralled for a fortnight. The young American who does this wire and trapeze act is a great actor, an angel, and he has become the friend to all of us. Go and see him ... and tell everybody that he is no mere acrobat in women's clothes, nor just a graceful daredevil, but one of the most beautiful things in the theatre. Stravinsky, Auric, poets, painters, and I myself have seen no comparable display of artistry on the stage since Nijinsky."To other friends he wrote "Your great loss for 1923 was Barbette -- a terrific act at the Casino de Paris...Ten unforgettable minutes. A theatrical masterpiece. An angel, a flower, a bird."
In 1926 Cocteau wrote an influential essay on the nature and artifice of the theatre called Le Numéro Barbette that was published in Nouvelle Revue Française
Nouvelle Revue Française
La Nouvelle Revue Française is a literary magazine founded in 1909 by a group of intellectuals, including André Gide, Jacques Copeau, and Jean Schlumberger...
. In this essay, Cocteau celebrates Barbette as an exemplar of theatrical artifice. Barbette, writes Cocteau, transforms effortlessly back and forth between man and woman. His female glamour and elegance Cocteau likens to a cloud of dust thrown into the eyes of the audience, blinding it to the masculinity of the movements he needs to perform his acrobatics. That blindness is so complete that at the end of his act, Barbette does not simply remove his wig but instead "plays the part of a man. He rolls his shoulders, stretches his hands, swells his muscles...And after the fifteenth or so curtain call, he gives a mischievous wink, shifts from foot to foot, mimes a bit of an apology, and does a shuffling little street urchin dance -- all of it to erase the fabulous, dying-swan impression left by the act." Cocteau calls upon his fellow artists to incorporate deliberately this effect that he believes for Barbette is instinctive. Cocteau commissioned a series of photographs of Barbette by the Surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
artist Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
, which captured not only aspects of Barbette's performance but also his process of transformation into his female persona.
Cocteau cast Barbette in his experimental film
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
Le Sang d'un Poete
The Blood of a Poet
The Blood of a Poet is an avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau and financed by Charles de Noailles. Photographer Lee Miller made her only film appearance in this movie, and it also features an appearance by the famed aerialist Barbette...
(The Blood of a Poet) (1930
1930 in film
-Events:* November 1: The Big Trail featuring a young John Wayne in his first starring role is released in both 35mm, and a very early form of 70mm film and was the first large scale big-budget film of the sound era costing over $2 million. The film was praised for its aesthetic quality and realism...
), Cocteau's first film. Barbette appears in a scene in a theatre box with several extras, dressed in Chanel
Chanel
Chanel S.A. is a French fashion house founded by the couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, well established in haute couture, specializing in luxury goods . She gained the name "Coco" while maintaining a career as a singer at a café in France...
gowns, who burst into applause at the sight of a card game that ends in suicide. He replaced the Vicomtesse de Noailles, who along with her husband had originally shot the scene but were appalled upon seeing the finished film, as the card game/suicide had been shot separately. Speaking of his preparation for the scene, Barbette, who knew he was replacing the Vicomtesse, said:
"I tried to imagine myself a descendant of the Marquis de Sade, of the Comtesse de Chevigné...and a long line of rich bankers -- all of which the Vicomtesse was. For a boy from Round Rock, Texas, that demanded a lot of concentration -- at least as much as working on the wire."
Cocteau fell in love with the Barbette persona but their affair was short-lived. Others in Barbette's European circle included Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was an American dancer, singer, and actress who found fame in her adopted homeland of France. She was given such nicknames as the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl", and the "Créole Goddess"....
, Anton Dolin
Anton Dolin
Sir Anton Dolin was an English ballet dancer and choreographer.Dolin was born in Slinfold in Sussex as Sydney Francis Patrick Chippendall Healey-Kay but was generally known as Patrick Kay. He joined Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1921, was a principal there from 1924, and was a principal...
, Mistinguett
Mistinguett
Mistinguett was a French actress and singer, whose birth name was Jeanne Bourgeois. She was at one time the best-paid female entertainer in the world...
and Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
.
Barbette is credited with having returned to the United States in 1935 to star on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in the Billy Rose
Billy Rose
William "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
circus musical Jumbo
Jumbo (musical)
Jumbo is a musical produced by Billy Rose, with music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart and book by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.-Production:...
. However, some sources suggest that this may have been a Barbette impersonator.
End of performing career and later life
Barbette continued to perform until the mid- to late 1930s. Most sources report 1938, although some place the date at 1936 and one as late as 1942. The end of Barbette's performing career is attributed to a number of causes, including a fall, pneumoniaPneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
, polio
Poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route...
or some combination of the three. All generally agree that whatever the cause, Barbette was left in extreme pain and in need of surgery and extensive rehabilitation to allow him to walk again. He became the artistic director and aerialist trainer for a number of circuses, including Ringling Bros. and the Shrine Circus
Shrine Circus
The Shrine Circus is a circus founded in the United States in 1906. It travels to roughly 120 cities per year in the United States and a separate unit travels to about 40 in Canada. It is affiliated with the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, a.k.a. Shriners.-History:The first...
. His work with Ringling Bros. has been described as "reinvent[ing] the aerial ballet". The Bird Cage Girls, The Swing High Girls, The Whirl Girls and the Cloud Swing Girls were among the female aerielist troupes whose routines were Barbette's specialty. Barbette served as a consultant on a number of films, including the circus sequences for Till the Clouds Roll By
Till the Clouds Roll By
Till The Clouds Roll By is a 1946 American musical film made by MGM. The film is a fictionalized biography of composer Jerome Kern, who was originally involved with the production of the film, but died before it was completed...
(1946
1946 in film
The year 1946 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*November 21 - William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives premieres in New York featuring an ensemble cast including Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell.*December 20 - Frank Capra's It's a...
) and The Big Circus
The Big Circus
The Big Circus is a 1959 film starring Victor Mature as a circus owner struggling with financial trouble and a murderous unknown saboteur.-Cast:*Victor Mature as Henry Jasper 'Hank' Whirling*Red Buttons as Randy Sherman*Rhonda Fleming as Helen Harrison...
(1959
1959 in film
The year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.-Events:* The Three Stooges make their 190th and last short film, Sappy Bull Fighters....
), and was hired to coach Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...
and Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
on gender illusion for the film Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot is an American comedy film, made in 1958 and released in 1959, which was directed by Billy Wilder and starred Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and George Raft. The supporting cast includes Joe E. Brown, Pat O'Brien and Nehemiah Persoff. The film is a remake by Wilder and I....
(1959). Cocteau biographer Francis Steegmuller wrote a profile of Barbette for The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
in 1969 entitled "An Angel, A Flower, A Bird". He created the circus sequences for the Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
-produced Broadway musical Around the World
Around the World (musical)
Around the World is a musical with a book adapted by Orson Welles, based on the Jules Verne novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. It involves an around-the-world adventure by Phileas Fogg.Music, lyrics and incidental score are by Cole Porter...
. Barbette created the aerial ballet for Disney on Parade
Disney on Parade
Disney on Parade was a daytime parade of the Hong Kong Disneyland theme park in Penny's Bay, Lantau Island, Hong Kong. It was debuted on rehearsal days throughout June, 2005, before the grand opening of Hong Kong Disneyland on September 12, 2005. The parade takes a few floats and themes from Tokyo...
and toured with it in Australia from 1969 through 1972.
Barbette spent his last months in Texas, living in Round Rock and Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
with his sister, Mary Cahill, often in severe pain. He committed suicide by overdose on August 5, 1973. He was survived by his sister Mary and a half-brother, Sam Loving. Barbette was cremated and his ashes were buried in Round Rock Cemetery.
Cultural legacy
In addition to Cocteau's essay Le Numéro Barbette and his appearance in Le Sang d'un Poete, Barbette also inspired the characterization of "Death" in Cocteau's play Orphée. The book Barbette, collecting Cocteau's essay, the New Yorker profile by Steegmuller, Man Ray's photographs and other material, was published in 1989. Alfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
based a character in the 1930
1930 in film
-Events:* November 1: The Big Trail featuring a young John Wayne in his first starring role is released in both 35mm, and a very early form of 70mm film and was the first large scale big-budget film of the sound era costing over $2 million. The film was praised for its aesthetic quality and realism...
film Murder!
Murder!
Murder! is a 1930 British drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring and Edward Chapman. It is based on a novel and play called Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson...
on Barbette. Different Fleshes is a book-length poem about Barbette written by Albert Goldbarth
Albert Goldbarth
Albert Goldbarth is an American poet born January 31, 1948 in Chicago. He is known for his prolific production, his gregarious tone, his eclectic interests and his distinctive 'talky' style. He has been a Guggenheim fellow and won the National Book Critics Circle award in 1991 and 2001, the only...
. It won the Voertman Poetry Award from the Texas Institute of Letters
Texas Institute of Letters
The Texas Institute of Letters is an organization devoted to the promotion of literature and literacy in Texas.Founded in 1936, the TIL offers awards to outstanding books written by Texas authors, or dealing with Texas subjects. The TIL also co-administrates the Dobie Paisano Fellowship, which...
. In 1993, performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
ist John Kelly, under commission from the Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....
, based his piece Light Shall Lift Them on him. Barbette's story is also told in the play Barbette, written by Bill Lengfelder and David Goodwin and first presented in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
in 2003.
Barbette may have been the inspiration for the 1933
1933 in film
-Events:* March 2 - King Kong premieres in New York City.* June 6 - The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey.* British Film Institute founded....
German film Viktor und Viktoria
Viktor und Viktoria
Viktor and Viktoria is a 1933 German musical comedy film directed by Reinhold Schünzel, starring Renate Müller as a woman pretending to be a female impersonator...
, which features a plot about a woman pretending to be a female impersonator whose gimmick of removing her wig at the end of her act is "inspired by [Barbette's] signature gesture." Viktor und Viktoria was remade in 1935
1935 in film
-Events:*Judy Garland signs a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .*Seven year old Shirley Temple wins a special Academy Award.*The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment started in order to educate the Bantu peoples.-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:...
(First a Girl
First a Girl
First a Girl is a 1935 British comedy film directed by Victor Saville and starring Jessie Matthews. First a Girl was adapted from the 1933 German film Viktor und Viktoria written and directed by Reinhold Schünzel...
), 1957
1957 in film
The year 1957 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 21 - The movie Jailhouse Rock, starring Elvis Presley, opens.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue-Awards:...
(Viktor und Viktoria) and 1982
1982 in film
-Events:* March 26 = I Ought to Be in Pictures, starring Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret and Dinah Manoff is released. Manoff would not appear in another movie until 1987's Backfire.* June = PG-rated film E.T...
(Victor Victoria, which inspired a 1992 Broadway musical of the same name
Victor/Victoria (musical)
Victor/Victoria is a musical with a book by Blake Edwards, music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and additional musical material by Frank Wildhorn...
).
A French restaurant in Minneapolis is named Barbette, after the aerialist.
External links
- Barbette at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- Barbette at the Internet Broadway DatabaseInternet Broadway DatabaseThe Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community....