Eva Tanguay
| Eva Tanguay | |
|---|---|
Eva Tanguay, ca. 1898
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| Background information | |
| Born |
August 1, 1878 Marbleton, Quebec, Canada |
| Died | January 11, 1947 (aged 68) Hollywood, California, United States |
| Genres | Vaudeville |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, entertainer |
| Years active | 1888-1930s |
Eva Tanguay (August 1, 1878 – January 11, 1947) was a Canadian singer and entertainer who billed herself as "the girl who made vaudeville famous".
Eva Tanguay was born in 1878 in Marbleton, Quebec. Her father was a doctor. Before she reached the age of six, her family moved from Quebec's Eastern Townships to Holyoke, Massachusetts. Her father died soon after. While still a child she developed an interest in the performing arts, making her first appearance on stage at the age of eight at an amateur night in Holyoke. Two years later, she was touring professionally with a production of a stage adaptation of the popular novel Little Lord Fauntleroy. Eva eventually landed a spot in the Broadway musical My Lady in 1901. The 1904 show The Chaperons led to her rise in popularity. By 1905, she was also performing in vaudeville as a solo act, where she would spend much of the remainder of her career.
Although she possessed only an average voice, the enthusiasm with which the robust Eva Tanguay performed her suggestive songs soon made her an audience favorite. She went on to have a long-lasting vaudeville career and eventually commanded one of the highest salaries of any performer of the day earning as much as $3,500 a week at the height of her fame around 1910.
After seeing her perform, English poet and sexual revolutionary Aleister Crowley called Tanguay America's equivalent to Europe's music hall greats, Marie Lloyd of England and Yvette Guilbert of France. "The American Genius," he wrote, "is unlike all others. The 'cultured' artist, in this country, is always a mediocrity. ... The true American is, above all things, FREE; with all the advantages and disadvantages that that implies. His genius is a soul lonely, disolate, reaching to perfection in some unguessed direction. ... Eva Tanguay is the perfect American artist. She is... starry chaste in her colossal corruption."
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