fbpx
Wikipedia

Barbette (performer)

January 01, 1970

Vander Clyde Broadway (December 19, 1899 – August 5, 1973), stage name Barbette, was an American female impersonator, high-wire performer, and trapeze artist born in Texas. Barbette attained great popularity throughout the United States but his greatest fame came in Europe and especially Paris, in the 1920s and 1930s.

Barbette
Vander Clyde transforms into Barbette, 1926. Photograph by Man Ray made on commission for Jean Cocteau
Born
Vander Clyde Broadway

(1898-12-19)December 19, 1898
Round Rock, Texas
DiedAugust 5, 1973(1973-08-05) (aged 74)
Round Rock, Texas
Occupation(s)Trapeze artist, Female impersonator

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 (the sources disagree on the cause), which left him in constant pain, Barbette returned to Texas but continued to work as a consultant for motion pictures as well as training and choreographing aerial acts for a number of circuses. After years of dealing with chronic pain, Barbette died by 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.

Early life and career edit

Barbette (birth name cited as Vander Clyde[1][2] and Vander Clyde Broadway[3][4]) was born on December 19, 1899,[5][6] (although it is sometimes cited as 1904[1][2]) in Texas. Most sources indicate he was born in Round Rock, although Barbette stated that his birthplace was Trickham.[1][3][4] His Draft Registration Card, dated 7 September 1918, states that his birthday was 19 December 1898.[7]

Some confusion surrounds 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.[4] However, Barbette's death certificate gives his father's first name as "Jeff."[8] The death certificate lists his mother's name as "Hattie Wilson;"[8] Barbette listed her name as "Mrs. E. S. Loving" on his passport application, as well as his 1918 Draft Registration form.[4]

In the United States Census of 1900, Barbette and his mother, Hattie Broadway (née Martin, 1879–1949), were living in Llano, Texas, in the household of his maternal great-grandparents, Florence E. and William Paschall, a farmer. Hattie, then aged 21, was listed as a widow on the census, while her son's birthdate is given as December 1897. Also living in the household was Hattie Broadway's younger brother, Malcolm Wilson.[9]

Hattie Broadway married, as her second husband, in 1906, Samuel E. Loving (1868–1953), who worked in a broom factory, and had five more children, sons Eugene Loving (1908–1971) and Sam Paschall Loving (1917–1996), and daughters Hugo Loving (1910–1912), Bonsilene Loving (born 1914), and Mary Martin Loving (1915–1997); after his mother's second marriage, Barbette was known as "Vander Loving".[10]

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."[1] Barbette practiced for hours by walking along his mother's steel clothes line.[3] He graduated from high school at the age of 14.[2]

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.[3] Together the pair decided that it was more dramatic for a woman to perform the acrobatic stunts.[11] "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."[1] 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.[1]

He then developed a 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.[12] His solo debut was at the Harlem Opera House in 1919.[13] 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,[14] advertised as a "versatile specialty."[15]

The toast of Europe edit

 
Barbette in 1923

Barbette made his European debut in 1923, having been sent by the William Morris Agency first to England and then to Paris.[1] He appeared in such venues as the Casino de Paris, the Moulin Rouge, the Empire, the Médrano Circus,[16] the Alhambra Theater[17] 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.[13][18] Also in this timeframe he became a featured attraction with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and toured London, Brussels and Berlin.[13] 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.[19][20]

Barbette was championed by avant garde artist Jean Cocteau. Cocteau wrote in 1923 to Belgian friend and critic Paul Collaer:

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.[1]

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."[1]

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.[1] 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.[21]

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.[22] He also cast Barbette in his experimental first film Le Sang d'un Poete (The Blood of a Poet) (1930). 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,

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.[1]

Cocteau fell in love with the Barbette persona but their affair was short-lived.[23] Others in Barbette's European circle included Josephine Baker, Anton Dolin, Mistinguett and Sergei Diaghilev.[13]

Barbette is credited with having returned to the United States in 1935 to star on Broadway in the Billy Rose circus musical Jumbo.[18][24] Extremely rare film footage of Barbette appearing in Jumbo at the Hippodrome in New York City, 1935, exists and was shot as part of a publicity newsreel to advertise the show. There is also footage from the premiere showing famous first-nighters arriving at the Hippodrome.[25] Barbette is filmed performing part of his acrobatic act during Jumbo.

End of performing career and later life edit

Barbette continued to perform until the mid-to-late 1930s. Most sources report the year as 1938, while others as early as 1936 and as late as 1942.[1][6][17][20] The end of Barbette's performing career is attributed to a number of causes including a fall, pneumonia, polio, or some combination of the three.[1][6][17][19][26] 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.[1][17][19]

He became the artistic director and aerialist trainer for a number of circuses, including Ringling Bros. and the Shrine Circus.[3] His work with Ringling Bros. has been described as "reinvent[ing] the aerial ballet".[27] The Bird Cage Girls, The Swing High Girls, The Whirl Girls and the Cloud Swing Girls were among the female aerialist troupes whose routines were Barbette's specialty.[28] He created the circus sequences for the Orson Welles-produced Broadway musical Around the World.[18]

Barbette served as a consultant on a number of films, including the circus sequences for Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)[3] and The Big Circus (1959),[29] and was hired to coach Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis on gender illusion for the film Some Like It Hot (1959) [23] Cocteau biographer Francis Steegmuller wrote a profile of Barbette for The New Yorker in 1969 entitled "An Angel, A Flower, A Bird". Barbette has a brief cameo in the jazz club scene which opens Curtis Harrington's film Night Tide (1961). Barbette created the aerial ballet for Disney on Parade[1] and toured with it in Australia from 1969 through 1972.[27][30]

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[19] on August 5, 1973. He was survived by his sister Mary and a half-brother, Sam Loving.[31] Barbette was cremated and his ashes were buried in Round Rock Cemetery.[5]

Cultural legacy edit

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.[20] The book Barbette, collecting Cocteau's essay, the New Yorker profile by Steegmuller, Man Ray's photographs and other material, was published in 1989.

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."[32] 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).

Alfred Hitchcock based a character in the 1930 film Murder! on Barbette.[20] Different Fleshes is a book-length poem about Barbette written by Albert Goldbarth.[33] It won the Voertman Poetry Award from the Texas Institute of Letters.[34] In 1993, performance artist John Kelly, under commission from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, based his piece Light Shall Lift Them on him.[35] 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.[23] A French restaurant in Minneapolis is named Barbette after the aerialist.[36]

Notes edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Steegmuller, Francis (1969-09-27). "An Angel, A Flower, A Bird". The New Yorker.
  2. ^ a b c Gewirtz, et al. p. 198
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Circus Producer Started in S.A.". San Antonio Express. 1953-10-15. pp. 16B.
  4. ^ a b c d United States passport application for Vander Clyde Broadway, dated March 9, 1923
  5. ^ a b Thompson, Karen R (2007-04-07). ""Barbette": He started in the circus". Community Impact newspaper. Archived from the original on 2013-02-08. Retrieved 2012-08-09.
  6. ^ a b c Culme, John (2001-05-19). "Barbette". Footlite Notes. Retrieved 2007-10-04.
  7. ^ Document viewed on ancestry.com on 10 January 2013.
  8. ^ a b Texas Certificate of Death E950067, State file number 81205, for Vander Clyde (Barbette) Broadway. 1973-10-17
  9. ^ 1900 U.S. Federal Census, accessed on ancestry.com on 10 January 2013
  10. ^ 1910 U.S. Federal Census, accessed on ancestry.com on 10 January 2013. Hugo Loving's gravemarker states "Infant Daughter of S.E. and H.M. Loving".
  11. ^ Kibler p. 148.
  12. ^ Gewirtz, et al. p. 199.
  13. ^ a b c d Cullen, et al. p. 67.
  14. ^ "Newspaper advertisement". The Kingston Daily Freeman. 1922-04-02.
  15. ^ "Newspaper advertisement". The Atlanta Constitution. 1921-07-24.
  16. ^ Curlee, Kendall (2001-06-21). "Clyde, Vander". The Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved 2007-10-04.
  17. ^ a b c d Wilmeth, et al. p. 55
  18. ^ a b c "Barbette credits on Broadway". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 2008-05-27.
  19. ^ a b c d Cullen, et al. p. 68
  20. ^ a b c d Gewirtz, et al. p. 207
  21. ^ Cocteau, Jean, "Le Numéro Barbette" quoted in Steegmuller
  22. ^ Lyford p. 223
  23. ^ a b c Liner, Elaine (2002-06-13). . Dallas Observer. Archived from the original on 2015-05-06. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
  24. ^ Winchell, Walter (1935-11-30). "On Broadway". Wisconsin State Journal. In 'Jumbo' there's a female impersonator named Barbette, who swishes on a slack wire and the trapeze.
  25. ^ Jumbo, 1935
  26. ^ Cullen, et al. p. 76
  27. ^ a b Tait p. 76
  28. ^ Hammarstrom p. 31
  29. ^ "'Big Circus' Coming to Airport Drive-In". The Paris (Texas) News. 1959-11-22.
  30. ^ Hammarstrom p. 37
  31. ^ "Vander Barbette Is Dead at 68; Trapeze Artist in the Twenties". The New York Times. 1973-08-09.
  32. ^ Williams, Albert (1997). "The Hidden Holocaust". The Chicago Reader. from the original on 31 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-26.
  33. ^ "Albert Goldbarth". The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2008-05-27.
  34. ^ "A Guide to the Albert Goldbarth Papers, Undated". Texas Archival Resources Online. Retrieved 2008-05-27.
  35. ^ Holden, Stephen (1993-11-12). "Review/Performance Art; John Kelly as a Parisian Legend". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-26.
  36. ^ "Barbette". Barbette. Retrieved 2013-12-04.

References edit

  • Cocteau, Jean & Ray, Man (1989). Barbette. ISBN 3-924040-77-X.
  • Cullen, Frank, Florence Hackman & Donald McNeilly (2007). Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-93853-8.
  • Gewirtz, Arthur, James J. Kolb, Hofstra University (2004). Art, Glitter, and Glitz: Mainstream Playwrights and Popular Theatre in 1920s America. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-32467-0.
  • Hammarstrom, David Lewis (1980). Behind the Big Top. New Jersey, A. S. Barnes and Co., Inc. ISBN 0-498-02205-6.
  • Kibler, M. Alison. Rank Ladies: Gender and Cultural Hierarchy in American Vaudeville. UNC Press. ISBN 0-8078-4812-3.
  • Lyford, Amy. "'Le Numéro Barbette': Photography and the Politics of Embodiment in Interwar Paris." Collected in Chadwick, Whitney & Tirza True Latimer (2003). The Modern Woman Revisited: Paris Between the Wars. Paris, France, Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-3292-2.
  • Tait, Peta (2005). Circus Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-32938-8.
  • Wilmeth, Don B., & Tice L. Miller (1996). Cambridge Guide to American Theatre. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56444-1.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Barbette.

January 01, 1970
barbette, performer, vander, clyde, broadway, december, 1899, august, 1973, stage, name, barbette, american, female, impersonator, high, wire, performer, trapeze, artist, born, texas, barbette, attained, great, popularity, throughout, united, states, greatest,. Vander Clyde Broadway December 19 1899 August 5 1973 stage name Barbette was an American female impersonator high wire performer and trapeze artist born in Texas Barbette attained great popularity throughout the United States but his greatest fame came in Europe and especially Paris in the 1920s and 1930s BarbetteVander Clyde transforms into Barbette 1926 Photograph by Man Ray made on commission for Jean CocteauBornVander Clyde Broadway 1898 12 19 December 19 1898Round Rock TexasDiedAugust 5 1973 1973 08 05 aged 74 Round Rock TexasOccupation s Trapeze artist Female impersonator 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 the sources disagree on the cause which left him in constant pain Barbette returned to Texas but continued to work as a consultant for motion pictures as well as training and choreographing aerial acts for a number of circuses After years of dealing with chronic pain Barbette died by 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 Contents 1 Early life and career 2 The toast of Europe 3 End of performing career and later life 4 Cultural legacy 5 Notes 6 References 7 External linksEarly life and career editBarbette birth name cited as Vander Clyde 1 2 and Vander Clyde Broadway 3 4 was born on December 19 1899 5 6 although it is sometimes cited as 1904 1 2 in Texas Most sources indicate he was born in Round Rock although Barbette stated that his birthplace was Trickham 1 3 4 His Draft Registration Card dated 7 September 1918 states that his birthday was 19 December 1898 7 Some confusion surrounds 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 4 However Barbette s death certificate gives his father s first name as Jeff 8 The death certificate lists his mother s name as Hattie Wilson 8 Barbette listed her name as Mrs E S Loving on his passport application as well as his 1918 Draft Registration form 4 In the United States Census of 1900 Barbette and his mother Hattie Broadway nee Martin 1879 1949 were living in Llano Texas in the household of his maternal great grandparents Florence E and William Paschall a farmer Hattie then aged 21 was listed as a widow on the census while her son s birthdate is given as December 1897 Also living in the household was Hattie Broadway s younger brother Malcolm Wilson 9 Hattie Broadway married as her second husband in 1906 Samuel E Loving 1868 1953 who worked in a broom factory and had five more children sons Eugene Loving 1908 1971 and Sam Paschall Loving 1917 1996 and daughters Hugo Loving 1910 1912 Bonsilene Loving born 1914 and Mary Martin Loving 1915 1997 after his mother s second marriage Barbette was known as Vander Loving 10 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 1 Barbette practiced for hours by walking along his mother s steel clothes line 3 He graduated from high school at the age of 14 2 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 3 Together the pair decided that it was more dramatic for a woman to perform the acrobatic stunts 11 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 1 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 1 He then developed a 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 12 His solo debut was at the Harlem Opera House in 1919 13 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 14 advertised as a versatile specialty 15 The toast of Europe edit nbsp Barbette in 1923 Barbette made his European debut in 1923 having been sent by the William Morris Agency first to England and then to Paris 1 He appeared in such venues as the Casino de Paris the Moulin Rouge the Empire the Medrano Circus 16 the Alhambra Theater 17 and the Folies Bergere He returned to America in 1924 to appear in The Passing Show of 1924 which ran for four months beginning in September 13 18 Also in this timeframe he became a featured attraction with Ringling Bros and Barnum amp Bailey Circus and toured London Brussels and Berlin 13 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 19 20 Barbette was championed by avant garde artist Jean Cocteau Cocteau wrote in 1923 to Belgian friend and critic Paul Collaer 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 1 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 1 In 1926 Cocteau wrote an influential essay on the nature and artifice of the theatre called Le Numero Barbette that was published in Nouvelle Revue Francaise 1 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 21 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 22 He also cast Barbette in his experimental first film Le Sang d un Poete The Blood of a Poet 1930 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 I tried to imagine myself a descendant of the Marquis de Sade of the Comtesse de Chevigne 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 1 Cocteau fell in love with the Barbette persona but their affair was short lived 23 Others in Barbette s European circle included Josephine Baker Anton Dolin Mistinguett and Sergei Diaghilev 13 Barbette is credited with having returned to the United States in 1935 to star on Broadway in the Billy Rose circus musical Jumbo 18 24 Extremely rare film footage of Barbette appearing in Jumbo at the Hippodrome in New York City 1935 exists and was shot as part of a publicity newsreel to advertise the show There is also footage from the premiere showing famous first nighters arriving at the Hippodrome 25 Barbette is filmed performing part of his acrobatic act during Jumbo End of performing career and later life editBarbette continued to perform until the mid to late 1930s Most sources report the year as 1938 while others as early as 1936 and as late as 1942 1 6 17 20 The end of Barbette s performing career is attributed to a number of causes including a fall pneumonia polio or some combination of the three 1 6 17 19 26 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 1 17 19 He became the artistic director and aerialist trainer for a number of circuses including Ringling Bros and the Shrine Circus 3 His work with Ringling Bros has been described as reinvent ing the aerial ballet 27 The Bird Cage Girls The Swing High Girls The Whirl Girls and the Cloud Swing Girls were among the female aerialist troupes whose routines were Barbette s specialty 28 He created the circus sequences for the Orson Welles produced Broadway musical Around the World 18 Barbette served as a consultant on a number of films including the circus sequences for Till the Clouds Roll By 1946 3 and The Big Circus 1959 29 and was hired to coach Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis on gender illusion for the film Some Like It Hot 1959 23 Cocteau biographer Francis Steegmuller wrote a profile of Barbette for The New Yorker in 1969 entitled An Angel A Flower A Bird Barbette has a brief cameo in the jazz club scene which opens Curtis Harrington s film Night Tide 1961 Barbette created the aerial ballet for Disney on Parade 1 and toured with it in Australia from 1969 through 1972 27 30 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 19 on August 5 1973 He was survived by his sister Mary and a half brother Sam Loving 31 Barbette was cremated and his ashes were buried in Round Rock Cemetery 5 Cultural legacy editIn addition to Cocteau s essay Le Numero Barbette and his appearance in Le Sang d un Poete Barbette also inspired the characterization of Death in Cocteau s play Orphee 20 The book Barbette collecting Cocteau s essay the New Yorker profile by Steegmuller Man Ray s photographs and other material was published in 1989 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 32 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 Alfred Hitchcock based a character in the 1930 film Murder on Barbette 20 Different Fleshes is a book length poem about Barbette written by Albert Goldbarth 33 It won the Voertman Poetry Award from the Texas Institute of Letters 34 In 1993 performance artist John Kelly under commission from the Brooklyn Academy of Music based his piece Light Shall Lift Them on him 35 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 23 A French restaurant in Minneapolis is named Barbette after the aerialist 36 Notes edit a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Steegmuller Francis 1969 09 27 An Angel A Flower A Bird The New Yorker a b c Gewirtz et al p 198 a b c d e f Circus Producer Started in S A San Antonio Express 1953 10 15 pp 16B a b c d United States passport application for Vander Clyde Broadway dated March 9 1923 a b Thompson Karen R 2007 04 07 Barbette He started in the circus Community Impact newspaper Archived from the original on 2013 02 08 Retrieved 2012 08 09 a b c Culme John 2001 05 19 Barbette Footlite Notes Retrieved 2007 10 04 Document viewed on ancestry com on 10 January 2013 a b Texas Certificate of Death E950067 State file number 81205 for Vander Clyde Barbette Broadway 1973 10 17 1900 U S Federal Census accessed on ancestry com on 10 January 2013 1910 U S Federal Census accessed on ancestry com on 10 January 2013 Hugo Loving s gravemarker states Infant Daughter of S E and H M Loving Kibler p 148 Gewirtz et al p 199 a b c d Cullen et al p 67 Newspaper advertisement The Kingston Daily Freeman 1922 04 02 Newspaper advertisement The Atlanta Constitution 1921 07 24 Curlee Kendall 2001 06 21 Clyde Vander The Handbook of Texas Online Retrieved 2007 10 04 a b c d Wilmeth et al p 55 a b c Barbette credits on Broadway Internet Broadway Database Retrieved 2008 05 27 a b c d Cullen et al p 68 a b c d Gewirtz et al p 207 Cocteau Jean Le Numero Barbette quoted in Steegmuller Lyford p 223 a b c Liner Elaine 2002 06 13 Swingers Barbette soars to greatness with the tragic tale of a trapeze artist Dallas Observer Archived from the original on 2015 05 06 Retrieved 2008 05 19 Winchell Walter 1935 11 30 On Broadway Wisconsin State Journal In Jumbo there s a female impersonator named Barbette who swishes on a slack wire and the trapeze Jumbo 1935 Cullen et al p 76 a b Tait p 76 Hammarstrom p 31 Big Circus Coming to Airport Drive In The Paris Texas News 1959 11 22 Hammarstrom p 37 Vander Barbette Is Dead at 68 Trapeze Artist in the Twenties The New York Times 1973 08 09 Williams Albert 1997 The Hidden Holocaust The Chicago Reader Archived from the original on 31 May 2008 Retrieved 2008 05 26 Albert Goldbarth The Poetry Foundation Retrieved 2008 05 27 A Guide to the Albert Goldbarth Papers Undated Texas Archival Resources Online Retrieved 2008 05 27 Holden Stephen 1993 11 12 Review Performance Art John Kelly as a Parisian Legend The New York Times Retrieved 2008 05 26 Barbette Barbette Retrieved 2013 12 04 References editCocteau Jean amp Ray Man 1989 Barbette ISBN 3 924040 77 X Cullen Frank Florence Hackman amp Donald McNeilly 2007 Vaudeville Old amp New An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America Routledge ISBN 0 415 93853 8 Gewirtz Arthur James J Kolb Hofstra University 2004 Art Glitter and Glitz Mainstream Playwrights and Popular Theatre in 1920s America Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN 0 313 32467 0 Hammarstrom David Lewis 1980 Behind the Big Top New Jersey A S Barnes and Co Inc ISBN 0 498 02205 6 Kibler M Alison Rank Ladies Gender and Cultural Hierarchy in American Vaudeville UNC Press ISBN 0 8078 4812 3 Lyford Amy Le Numero Barbette Photography and the Politics of Embodiment in Interwar Paris Collected in Chadwick Whitney amp Tirza True Latimer 2003 The Modern Woman Revisited Paris Between the Wars Paris France Rutgers University Press ISBN 0 8135 3292 2 Tait Peta 2005 Circus Bodies Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance Routledge ISBN 0 415 32938 8 Wilmeth Don B amp Tice L Miller 1996 Cambridge Guide to American Theatre Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 56444 1 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Barbette Barbette at IMDb Barbette at the Internet Broadway Database Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Barbette performer amp oldid 1175935482, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.