Although, she has been called “Jeanne La Folle” (Crazy Jeanne), also “La Mélinite” for being extremely audacious in her Can Can performance, Jane Avril had a lot of class and an enormous entrepreneurial talent.   Jane, despite being a dancer who performed completely nude, was a refined, sweet, generous, fun, audacious, liberal, elegant lady with finesse and savoir-faire. French used to refer to her as a lady with “ Une personnalité distinguée”, meaning a lady of a distinguished personality. She was well read and evolved in literary circles and milieux.  She was born to a wealthy family. Much better, she was “noble”, an aristocrat, a Marquise. Her father was an Italian Marquis. Why did  she become an exotic Can Can dancer? Why did she dance naked in public places and cabarets? Why did she pose nude? Wait and see.  Jane spend her time, telling jokes, reading, perfecting her dance techniques, visiting painters studios, conversing with the most illustrious writers, authors and poets of the era and of course, regularly frequenting the famous and infamous “Le Chat Noire”. Her father was loving and caring. Her mother au contraire. She used the beat the hell out of her. So Jane, decided to run away but she was caught by her mother. At 16, she became an intern at the office of professor Charcot at “La Salpêtrière”. All the nurses at Charcot’s clinic became fond of her and tried to organize a “Bal Masqué” in her honor. In reality, she was not an apprentice nor an intern. Her mother committed her to the hospital as  “Une Folle“, meaning “Crazy”. The physicians at the hospital began to have doubts about her insanity.

Photos: Jane Avril, era posters by Toulouse-Lautrec.

They conducted further tests and psychiatric evaluations and found her to be completely sane, so, they sent her free. Instead of returning home as her mother wanted, Jane managed to  escape. Homeless and without a dime, she took refuge at “Les Filles Publiques”, not so good! Short after, she began to visit “Le Bal Bullier” on Boulevard Saint Michel where a new nickname was given to her “Fil de Soie” meaning thread of silk, because she was extremely thin. New friends at “Le Bal Bullier” invited her to go dancing at “La Closerie des Lilas”. There, by pure stroke of luck, she encountered some of the era’s most brilliant figures of literature and humanities, celebrities like  Oscar Wilde, Arsène Houssaye, Moreas, Paul Fort, France’s great Mallarmé and the illustrious French poet of a world fame, Verlaine.

Charming, sweet and strikingly intelligent, Jane captured the attention of Houssaye who gladly employed her as a secretary in his office. Of course, being a noblewoman, an aristocrat with the title of Marquise (never mind, she was poor), helped her to approach well to do people and gave her confidence to converse with them. Being a sweet, young and a poor aristocrat girl,  people became very curious about her. Socialites wanted to know  more about this enigmatic, aristocratic  “clochard” and  “vagabond” little girl. To many, she was a puzzling little darling.  Jane found a job as a cashier at the « Paris World Fair of 1889 », where she met Charles Zidler the propietor of « Le Moulin Rouge ». From that moment, her entire life changed. Now, she is constantly dressed in red and wears a black hat. Zidler, the boss of the cabaret employs her as a dancer. Just like Louise Weber, aka La Goulue, she developed her own style and refused to wear the white skirts as it was required by the cabaret management. All the other girls had to follow the rules and was dressed in long white “jupons” but, Jane broke all the rules like La Goulue, and began to dance as a  free-spirited Can Can showgirl. At the beginning, she was very timid. But, later on, her eccentricity and sudden improvisations (for lack of proper training)  provoked the enthusiasm of the customers.  Weeks later, she took Paris by storm. And exactly as La Goulue did before, she left "Le Moulin Rouge", not because, she wanted to create her own cabaret but to work as a super star   at “L’Eldorado”, “Jardin de Paris”,  and even at “Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt”, “Les Follies Bergères” and the fabulous “Casino de Paris” where she met France’s Great Mistinguett (Then, First Star of France). Jane became Mistinguett partner! What a remarkable luck!

One year later, she leaves « Le Casino de Paris » to become the queen of the French Can Can at « Palace Theater » in London and Madrid,  and to perform in the United States. In New York, she took the lead in various Broadway shows including “La Belle de New York”. Eight months later, she returns to France to star in « Claudine à Paris” at  “Bouffes Parisiennes”. Her private life was a dramatic continuation of her performance on stage. She loved men. She collected lovers. Tons of them. Some, were not very nice to her. One particular lover gave her the nightmares of her life. He embezzled money from her, cheated on her, even caused her bodily injuries. Brought before a magistrate, the prosecutor asked the judge to lock him up for a very long time. But Jane objected. Not because she feared this brutal man but, as she told the judge « Don’t put him in jail, I want to give him another chance in life, provided that he promises me, that as soon as he leaves this courtroom, he will go looking for a prostitute, any prostitute he can find in the streets…he will give her every single penny he has in his pockets and he will get her off the street for good, no matter how he does it… he has to do it. If he can do that, if he can save her life, I will save his!”. This was  Jane Avril!