10 posts tagged “actresses”

Over on my Texas blog, I've been writing about the Texas State Fair, which I attended with friends last week, Butter sculptures, quilts, and fried foods. Go here to read all about it.

I also wrote about my problems with AT&T's Customer Service, a term which means something different on each end of the phone (ironically). Advice? Go here to answer my questions.

And an easy recipe for Spicy Chicken.

Last week was a busy week in North Texas. This week I am travelling to Boulder to give a paper on 19th-century actresses again, this time about the "new" ways in which men looked at them, given new "ways of looking" evolving during the period. The title is

GAZING AT A WOMAN ON THE PARIS STAGE:

THE FLÂNEUR, THE COLLECTOR, THE ARTIST, & THE CUSTOMER

Late Nineteenth Century Theatre and the Male Spectator

 

and I am using pictures like this one of a young Sarah Bernhardt:

I hope to see something of the city while I am there: everyone tells me how great Boulder is when they hear I am going there. I believe them!

Pearl

 

One of my favorite movies is Hitchcock's 1943 Shadow of a Doubt.

Apparently, it was one of Hitchcock's favorites, as well, although there are lots of people who have never seen it. It is not as famous as other of Hitch's films, like Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, or To Catch a Thief. Each of those had bigger names or, in the case of Psycho, overtly more famous scenes (Janet Leigh's slashing murder in the shower, combining sex and blood, mmmm).

I have always found Shadow of a Doubt terrifying, creepy, and a fine mix of comedy and skin-crawling suspense.

The scriptwriters are worth noting. One was Alma Reville, Hitchock's wife. She was his editor and assistant director, but one of the writers not only on this film but on Secret Agent, Suspicion and The Paradine Case for Hitch. The other two are more intersting to me, personally. One was Sally Benson, the author of Junior Miss (a novel that became a successful play and radio program, one of my period favorites when I was a pre-teen, about the wholesome experiences of a young girl in high school....), as well as the filmscripts for Anna and the King of Siam, Little Women, The Singing Nun, Come to the Stable, and (hilariously!) Viva Las Vegas, yes the Elvis film! If you know these films, you recognize them as generally wholesome, optimistic, upbeat films. Her most famous filmscript is undoubtedly Meet Me in St. Louis, the Judy Garland/Margaret O'Brien musical.

...and Shadow of a Doubt? Her first film credit.

Huh.

The other writer is Thornton Wilder--yes, the author of Our Town. Only five years after writing Our Town and winning the Pulitzer Prize for it, Wilder co-pens this disturbing view into the emotional corruption of a happy suburban girl.

The participation of Benson and Wilder in this film actually intrigues me and freaks me out.

Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright are marvelous as the central duo, young Charlotte, known as Charlie, and her maternal Uncle Charlie. This is one of Hitchcock's films based on visual/metaphorical duets, like Strangers on a Train or Vertigo, where two characters mirror each other's emotional, psychological, or physical acts. Charlie is a young woman from a nice middle-class family who lives in Santa Rosa, California; she has no job, seems to have graduated from high school, and appears to drift without direction or purpose--in the most pleasant and charming manner. Uncle Charlie, in his niece's eyes, is a sophisticated, handsome man-of-the-world for whom she has been named and in whom she seems to see a kind of shadow self (male, older, wealthy, unattached) who can do the things and go all the places she fantasizes about. In reality, however, Uncle Charlie is the Merry Widow Murderer who marries and strangles wealthy widows, using all that charm, all those good looks, all his focus to seduce and kill.

The script opens with a remarkable dual sequence showing, first, Uncle Charlie in ugly East Coast Philadelphia, living in a tenement, pursued by government agents, and apparently sick to death of life. The rooming house with its gossipy landlady, the slum streets, and the overhead angles make the city look as filled with exhausted, as broken down, and as empty as Uncle Charlie does. Then we fly to Santa Rosa, young Charlie's city, where everyone smiles, the town sparkles, and golly, there are trees and big houses with shady porches. But Charlie is bored, distracted, and irritable with her lovely, simple family.

The problem is that once young Charlie and Uncle Charlie get into the same house, something's got to give. Charlie sets out to learn her uncle's secret--not knowing there is one and how bad it is. She simply wants to know more about the man she admires and emulates.

 

The film follows both of them, young Charlie as she discovers the ugliness behind her uncle's handsome facade and Uncle Charlie as he tries to evade government agents and his niece's questions. He tries to kill her three times--unsuccessfully. He reveals the nastiness inside himself--but only to her. He takes her to a bar, where she has obviously never been; this is a great scene, a kind of spiritual initiation for young Charlie into Uncle Charlie's world.

I love this film for its creepiness, for its weird mix of the obliviously happy/normal Santa Rosa folks and the self-aware/transformed people (like young Charlie, the government agent who is our romantic hero, and Uncle Charlie himself) who have been infected by the negative stuff of the 20th century (serial killing, consumer envy, urban blight). There is a scene that suggests that Uncle Charlie's "disease" comes from a fall he took on a bicycle when he was six or so, smacking his head and nearly dying. As his sister, young Charlie's mother, notes, "After that there was no holding him." Before, Uncle Charlie had been a bookworm, a reader, a quiet, well-behaved boy; after, an adventurer, a rover, a physically active boy who detached himself from their household. I like that this is hinted at but not some easy Freudian explanation of where a serial killer comes from; the scary thing is that Charlie himself doesn't seem to have any kind of conscience or guilt about his murders, simply the desire to enjoy its fruits and to stay out of jail... which seems more about freedom and preserving his reputation than fear of authority, either civil or religious. Uncle Charlie is almost, nearly a prophet: he looks at the modern world and seems corruption rather than progress, disease rather than stout health, and self-absorption rather than optimism. But he is, of course, corrupt himself, and murdering silly, lazy women isn't actually justifiable because they're, well, silly and lazy.

 

Wilder's participation in this is most interesting to me, because this seems the flip side of the surface optimism and flag-waving patriotism most people see in Our Town, without looking more deeply into the playwright's message. I have always thought that Wilder used that play to send a message about complacency and knee-jerk self-satisfaction; I think he does the same here.

It is a brilliant, chilling film with many individually fine performances, including and especially Patricia Collinge as young Charlie's mum and Uncle Charlie's older sister. The sequence in which she bakes a cake for the government agents is marvelous, highlighting the character's obliviousness to what is happening in her house under her nose. Because it is so "normal" Uncle Charlie's performance is scarier, in many ways, than the one-off horror of Psycho.

Pearl

I am teaching a night class on Women in American Theatre, starting from early American theatre (around the 1750s) to the present. It is a grad-level course and I have about 11 students.

The early years focus on actresses, mostly. Two of the earliest are Charlotte Cushman and Fanny Kemble: in separate ways they are both fascinating examples of how women in particular negotiated the contradictions and confusions of American theatre.

Cushman is considered the first great native-born American actress. She was also an anomaly in that she didn't physically fit the leading lady type: she was tall, broad shouldered, and had a deep voice... for a girl. She was, however, surprisingly popular with audiences from the beginning; she also found roles that foregrounded her abilities. Rather than play Juliet or Ophelia--typical ingenue-heroine roles in mid-nineteenth century America--in favor of Romeo and Lady Macbeth.

Between 1835 and 1874, she worked the entire east coast of the US: Boston, New York, New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Albany... and everyone in between. She managed the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia--making her one of the first female managers in American theatre, although few people write or discuss this aspect of her work.

Cushman played at least 16 cross-dressed roles, the most popular of which were Romeo and Hamlet. She was in fact more of a character actress than a leading lady... which never stopped her from playing leading roles, be they male or female.

She succeeded here in America, and then toured to Europe, staying there four years. When she returned, she negotiated a salary equal to any leading male actor: a sign of her popularity and talent.

William Winter, the drama critic for the New York Times, said of her “She was incarnate power: she dominated by intrinsic authority; she was a woman born to command and to such minds as comprehended authentic leadership she achieved immediate, complete and permanent conquest.”

Cushman herself said of her art “Art is an absolute mistress, she will not be coquetted with or slighted; she requires the most entire self devotion, and she repays with grand triumphs.”

She lived in lesbian relationships, what were known as "Boston marriages," with several different women: the sculptor Emma Stebbins and the actress and writer Matilda Hays among others. She also helped other women pursue their artistic careers, acting as an early feminist mentor within the female arts community.

Cushman died in 1876 of breast cancer.

Fanny Kemble was another early success story: born in Britain, into the leading theatre family, Kemble had little or no training, but was popular on the London stage in the typical ingenue roles--especially Juliet--that Cushman avoided.

Kemble came to the USA in 1832, accompanying her father, Charles, on his acting tour of the new country. In 1834, she married a young man who had swept her off her feet: Pierce Butler, the grandson of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and heir to a tobacco/cotton/rice plantation off the coast of Georgia. On marrying Butler, Kemble gave up the stage to take on the role of wife. She accompanied Butler to Georgia, to his inherited plantation, in 1838... and saw slavery first-hand.

That was the end of her marriage, essentially. She and Butler disagreed about his ownership of slaves: she found herself firmly on the abolition side, while Butler refused to consider such a policy. In 1847 she returned to the stage, travelling to Europe; Butler filed for divorce, accusing her of abandonment, both of him and their two daughters.

After the divorce, Kemble picked up her theatrical career, making a period "lateral" move into reading: instead of performing roles in full productions, Kemble created a career giving public readings. She focused on Shakespeare, "performing" readings of Juliet, Ophelia, Rosalind, Viola, and other women from the playwright's work. Kemble also published her diary from that time in Georgia, documenting her impressions of and reactions to the practices of slavery she witnessed on her ex-husband's plantations.

Kemble struggled in a different manner than Cushman against the stereotypes for women in performance. Kemble gave up theatre for the traditional road: roles of wife, mother, helpmeet, soul mate. Kemble certainly fit the physical types of ingenues and leading ladies, she also had the talent and work ethic (not to mention connections!) to make a career in theatre work, and audiences loved her.

But... Kemble couldn't sink her independent thought for marriage. She couldn't give up her "troublesome" opinions or agree to agree with her husband's p.o.v. Instead, she persevered, fought, nagged, whatever about what she thought was right... right out of her marriage. In the end, her husband went bankrupt (losing over $700,000 and selling all his slaves in the largest single auction of human beings on record). Their daughters split over the politics: one agreed with Kemble, one with Butler.

Both women operated outside the box, so to speak, to make peace with their own inability to conform to conventional patterns for actresses and for women during the period of the 1830s through 1870s.

Pearl

I grew up watching old movies from the 1930s and 1940s, and fell in love with these same films over and over. They certainly helped to shape my notions about life, love, and romance, as well as feminism and independence (I know: seems odd to say, from obviously anti-feminist institutions like Hollywood studios and standard heterosexual romance storylines, and yet...). There were certain actresses of the era who remain my favorites. One is Jean Arthur,

 another is Rosalind Russell,

 and a third is Barbara Stanwyck.

All three were obviously beautiful by Hollywood star standards, but--and this is the best part--both funny and smart, too.

In movies like His Girl Friday, The Talk of the Town, and Ball of Fire, all three showed their ability to handle comic writing and onscreen romances with superstar male stars with great acting and deft timing.

His Girl Friday, trailer...

Ball of Fire, trailer...

And Talk of the Town...

These women were glamorous and intelligent, seemingly more interested in doing fine work that being considered beautiful dolls. Both Russell and Stanwyck had long, long, healthy careers, while Arthur quit at the height of her career due to extreme stage fright, making only brief re-appearances. I find that most young people don't know them and haven't seen their best work, despite AMC, TMC, and Netflix. Jean Arthur especially seems invisible to them.

And yet she was the actress both George Stevens and Frank Capra declared their favorite.

Comedy is hard--and these three women did it with style, grace, and brains. But outside the box, in their personal lives, they hardly fit the mold, either. Arthur left the studio system early and went on to teach at Vassar, including teaching a young Meryl Streep. Russell won 5 Gold Globes--more than anyone except Streep. She had a successful Broadway career, especially in musicals, as well as continuing in film into the 1960s and one marriage of 35 years (he was not an actor or film professional). Stanwyck moved across film to TV and back, earning nominations for Oscars, Emmys, and Golden Globes--and winning many of the second two. She made 80 films in 38 years--sort of the Lou Gehrig of film! She had two marriages, probably unhappy given details, and rumors then and now whispered that she was lesbian or bisexual. If so, she was in good company with many of her film biz fellows, trying to portray a "normal" life (as tabloids and Middle America saw it) in order to continue working at what she loved.   

Pearl

The last two days I've been in St. Louis, giving a paper at a national conference on French history. Left Saturday morning and returned last night...

The weather in St. Louis was rainy on Saturday and snowy overnight into Sunday, a heavy, wet snow.

I took the light rail into Union Station from the airport on Saturday. Great trip from western part of the suburbs into the city.

 

 

My paper was all about two of the women who managed theatres in 19th century Paris, Sarah Bernhardt and Gabrielle Rejane. Or... sort of. The first part of the paper was about the laws, regulations, and conventions that kept women from active participation in the administration and management of theatre business--and there were a lot of them. The second part--the shortest part--was about the two women in particular. The third part focused on the problem of finding primary information about women in management and my speculation, based on evidence, about why there is so little information about a substantial portion of these women's lives.

The other paper--because two scholars dropped out of giving papers--was about dance in Paris, between 1909 and 1938. Oddly, I knew a lot about this subject, both because of my own research and a friend who is an expert on the same. This scholar's focus was about the way in which ballet specifically returned to a "high art" status during this period, thanks to the Ballet Russes.

Great questions afterward and several people spoke to each of us individually for some time afterward. It was very gratifying, and I'm happy to think I've made a few new contacts among colleagues. And yes, this paper came out of my work in Paris last fall.

Pearl   

The Musée Galliera is a museum of fashion and costume. It is located in the 16th, only a stone's throw from the Musée Guimet. The museum is only open for special exhibitions, and it has one now through the end of April 2009: Sous l'empire des crinolines (1852-1870).

 

This is right up my alley, in terms of the historical project I am researching on actresses. The exhibition focuses on the clothing of women during the Second Empire, and by extension the cult of consumerism and luxury that these fashions encouraged. Both Emperor Napoléon III and Empress Eugénie recognized the importance of fashion as a key industry and export of France, but also as a sign system that delineated gender and class.

The dresses, accessories, and artwork included in the exhibition are fantastic. Again, this is the clothing of the Empress, as well as noble and upper middle class women... not the working classes. Here is an example of a robe de jour (daytime dress):

This dates from 1866 and was worn by the princesse Mathilde. It is silk, with the red and black stripes woven into the fabric. As you can see, the shape is distinctive: rounded shoulders, fitted bodice, wasp waist, and full, blooming skirt... over hoops and crinolines. This is one of the first dresses in the exhibition, and it is gorgeous. My photo doesn't really do it justice, which is why I took so few pictures.

Instead I bought the excellent catalogue, which not only provides details about each object included in the exhibition but a great collection of photographs of each dress, piece of jewelry, accessory, photo, or engraving. Then the catalogue surrounds each object with a cultural description. In other words, this is the kind of catalogue you wish every exhibition would produce.

I have to say that this kind of exhibition is manna from heaven for me.

The curators also displayed the costumes in plexiglass cubes that allowed me to see the dresses from all sides--also uncommon!--and provided explanations of the customs of period fashions.

For example: many luxury dresses were made in three or four separate parts. There was a skirt, often made with ruffles or beaded trims and ribbons. Then there were two or three different styles of bodies: one for day, with longer sleeves and one for evenings or balls, with a deeper decollatage and tighter waist.

Here are two bodices, the one on the left for day and the one on the right for fancy dress/evening. The skirt would be the same fabric, so that on a woman it would look like a one-piece dress. You cannot tell from this picture how low the nighttime bodice is, but the upper edge would uncover about half of the wearer's breasts. You can see how tiny the waists are on these pieces.

There might also be a fourth piece, a kind of overskirt that would either look like a faux sash in front or would be designed to be a much more elaborate piece around the waist. This would be open over the skirt in front, and trail into a significant train behind.

The fabrics are silk, satin, velvet, and different kinds of gauzes. The most popular colors were pastels in yellow, rose, lilac, blue, and green, or white, red, and black. The elaborate, machine-made lace came in black or white, and could be made not only into trim but shawls, scarves, and mantillas (the Empress was born in Spain).

This is a world where days were spent making polite visits and leaving photo cards behind, while nights were for banquets, balls, and the theatre. The Emperor Napoléon III was a fan of the theatre and of actresses... which is the subject of my study.

Sous l'empire des crinolines is an excellent exhibition, whether you enjoy fashion or not. This exhibition recognizes the overlap between politics, consumerism, and fashion in very clear and distinct ways. It is fabulously produced.

The Musée Galliera: 10, av Pierre 1er de Serbie; 16th arr., Métro Iéna or Alma-Marceau; the museum is open every day except Monday from 10 to 18h.; this exhibition closes 26 April 2009. There is no café and no bookstore in the museum, but an excellent café can be found just across the street from the entrance.

Pearl

As I mentioned in my first post and rarely since, I am in Paris researching actresses working in Paris in the second half of the 19th century and the image of the Actress in cultural play during that same time and place; my final study with analyze the relationship between the two. Since I've been in Paris, my work in the library has consisted of a varied diet of the following:

• secondary sources by French scholars on this subject that aren't to be found in the States
• popular novels and plays of the period between 1850 and 1905 that are also difficult to find in the States but whose narrative centers around a female performer (actress, singer, or dancer)
• period newspapers and journals, including journals and magazines aimed at women, for reviews about various plays, news about female performers and theatre, interviews of female performers, endorsements and ads featuring same
• tracking down biographical details of actresses identified in photographs and stories, if there is any
• studying French laws about theatre and the "code" applied to theatre performers governing behavior in the theatres during rehearsals, performances, and all professional time
• memoirs, autobiographies, and histories including written during my period that use female performers (any of them) as subject matter
• tracking down photographs and other iconographic sources using actresses or other female performers
• tracking down more elusive information, like actresses' "other work" as artists' models, nude or pornographic photo models, and prostitutes

One of the ongoing issues in this study is that while many of those who write about actresses are actually talking about the image or stereotype of the Actress--not the women who worked in the jobs. Or they write about actors altogether, combining male and female performers under the same umbrella, but it is clear that there were specific differences between the economic and social realities of the different gendered performers; for one, French state law treated them differently. Or they write about celebrities like Bernhardt as if she represented all actresses--which she did and didn't at the same time. Or they write about literature featuring the Actress.

This week I read a memoir of a statesman and journalist about his youth under Napoleon III. His constant mention of actresses focused on them as mistresses of famous men and as ornaments of public life. Another memoir, this time by an actor, detailed his seduction at 16 by a famous actress, then married and older than him, in her scented boudoir; the account ended with the mention of her death by disease a few years later. 

The Actress was a central stereotype of French culture during the Second Empire and Third Republic. She was everywhere, part of the developing consumer and visual culture of the period, the luxury culture that France was interested in exporting and in using to attract visitors (especially wealthy American visitors). The Actress (meaning the image and stereotype) reflected both the high number of women to be found on Paris's stages during this time (in theatre, opera, ballet, cafe-concerts, cabarets, vaudevilles, and other forms of performance) and the preoccupation of journalists, visual arrtists, and writers with this figure, seen in public spaces on and off the actual stages. The reality of working actresses fed the stereotype, and the media, artists, and writers used the stereotype to define a certain kind of character within French culture of the period.

The really amazing thing is that the Actress (stereotype) is literally everywhere. Everywhere. So... a lot of material.

There is a definite trajectory as well from the beginning of the Second Empire through the Third Republic. The interaction of the state and theatre in France was defined by the politics of the era, especially in Paris where government was just down the road from the theatres, and politicians were often patrons of theatre and of actresses.

Quite a bit of what I am doing is tracking the stereotype through various media and art forms, both high and low.

These two pictures are of Sarah Bernhardt, arguably the most famous actress and one of the msot famous personalities of her day. To a lot of period in the second half of the 19th century, she epitomized the Actress. The photograph above was taken by the famous photographer Nadar when she was about 18, one of a series from the same session. The poster depicted on the left is later in her career (much later) when she controlled almost all her media. The actress as personality and model, the actress as Joan of Arc, the character she performed and an essential "spirit" of France, the actress as celebrity, the actress as a recognizable face: a whole cornucopia of sign systems, right here.

Most actresses, however, were far less well-known, and in fact found that the stereotype preceded them everywhere. By the end of the 1850s, the stereotype was established in literature, journalism, visual art, and cafe culture. Photography and the emergence of artists like Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, who featured working-class models, added to the public attitudes toward dancers, singers, and actresses.

Pearl 

Monday was a delightful and successful day. I finally went to see the exhibition at the Opéra Garnier, Image[s] de la danse, that includes drawings, lithographs, photographs, paintings, sculpture, and film of the dance and dancers, as well as two costumes, both from Swan Lake. This exhibition, like the conference I attended in Glasgow, concerns the problem of capturing the ephemeral nature of performance through visual media. It also interrogates the difference between the dancer and the dance, and the dancer outside performance: rehearsal, personal life, etc.

If you are in Paris, I recommend seeing the exhibition. It will be open into January 2009. I recommend it not only because it is well located in the part of town most tourists visit, but the ticket includes not only the exhibition but the interior of the Opéra Garnier. Worth the price!

The exhibition was right up my alley and very relevant to the work I am doing here, this time about ballerinas and dancers. 

I have already written about the Opéra Garnier, but this time I went in and around and about. Here are some of my photographs (see the rest on Flickr).

 

 

 

 

If you buy a ticket for an unsupervised visit, you can wander at will, rather than be forced to wait for, then follow a guide. There is a limited number of tourguides, so people who entered with me were still waiting for a tour when I left... 90 minutes later. And I am not all that certain how factual or effective the tour is. My advice: get yourself a good guidebook (the Michelin Green Guide is the best) and see the place at your own pace. My only warning is that the bookstore closes for lunch, 12:30 to 2 pm, so shop accordingly.

And it is a good shop, especially for recordings and things for kids who might love ballet, orchestral music, or opera.

After this, I bought a lunch salad of mozzarella, tomato, basil and raw ham (again, the prosciutto-like ham) and took it over to the Tuileries to eat. Found an empty chair near a fountain, ate lunch, enjoyed the traffic and the last vestiges of the sun.

I walked around for a while in the gardens, but it was windy and chilly, and the clouds were closing in. I did stop to watch three kids chase wooden sailboats around a pool. They were having a lot of fun racing around and around, pushing their boats away from the edge: they expended a lot of energy!

 

I ended the day by browsing the Louvre bookstore--an excellent resource for art and period texts--and then having a coffee on Place Colette at one of my favorite cafes while reading two chapters in a key text I am re-reading for sources and inspiration in my work on actresses. While there, the rain really came down and the air turned chilly--and I still sat at an outside table! but there was one moment when the sun came out and shone on the House of Molière.

A very satisfying day, ended by more reading and transcribing back in the 'burbs.

Pearl

Monday, while taking in the exhibition at the Opera Garnier, I overheard the following.

Tourguide from O.G.to guided tour group, standing in front of portrait of ballerina (1880s): "Most ballerinas were call girls who wanted to seduce men, not dance... she is chubby! Beautiful women were chubby women. [They were] hired to attracted male spectators, selected because they looked good not because they were good dancers. This woman was not a good dancer. See how chubby she is?"

First: the woman in the picture did not resemble today's ballerinas, true. Guessing, she would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of a size 6 or 8, with a C-cup bust.

Second: call girls? Uh, I think she needs to brush up on her categories of prostitution. Or her English. 

Third: this is what you tell a guided tour party of Americans about the first artwork you show them in an exhibition that specifically focuses on the stereotyping and fetishizing of ballet dancers as sex objects as negative aspects within the images of dance (and dancers) presented? (But that was three rooms away... this room was just about the fat hookers who ruined Swan Lake for all of us.)

And, lest you think she was just testing our American tourists, trying to get them to confront their own stereotypes in order to out the tourists and make them think, she went on to make similar comments about the pastels and statues by Degas close by, while acknowledging Degas' status as an artist. Without pausing to allow her tourists "think" time.

Pearl

THE DAY. I finally launch this site, where I will detail the events of the next couple of months, while I am on research leave in Paris, working on my current scholarly project. My simple goal for this blog is to let family, friends, and students in on my activities here, because "sabbatical in Paris" might just translate in some people's minds as "sitting in cafes all day discussing existential philosophy and smoking endless Gauloises." (Not any of you, I know.) In this way, I can share my time spent researching, writing, and working in the archives around the city, but also the food, theatre, books, and daily life in this City of Lights.

After three years of planning, I am overwhelmed to finally, finally, finally be here! 

My current project (it still sounds too grand to call it a book--yet) is about female performers living and working in Paris from 1850-1900. Or specifically the dissonance between the cultural icon of The Actress and the factual lives of actresses, singers, and dancers in the second half of the 19th century. I'll be researching social and economic details of contracts, salaries, hiring information, theatrical seasons; locating and reading personal accounts by women working in the profession during this time; and shaping the final book. (And yes, I will be going to cafes!) More about that later.

For now, au revoir,  Pearl