A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
LA GOULUE FRENCH CAN CAN INFLUENCED
ZIEGFELD FOLLIES AND RADIO CITY ROCKETTES.
The
French Can Can which was created and nourished with the talent of Louise
Weber
has been immortalized by Toulouse-Lautrec in his paintings, posters and
drawings, by Jean Renoir in his elaborate productions and stage sets and by
Jean Gabin and Maria Felix Berger in their movies.
It took the French 40 years to transform Can Can into a choreographic
perfection and a visual delight. In 1850, Can Can became an institution and
a shrine to cabaret dancers. At its dawn, it was accepted at face value as a
pure French artistic innovation and a Parisian invention. It did not evolve
into an international art platform until Celeste Mogador took it to the
second level by incorporating the “Quadrille” and Rosa Pompom by adding more
human substance to its feminine acrobatic forms and figures. The colorful
character of Pompom who was known to the French as the self-proclaimed legal
heir and illegitimate daughter of King Charles X gave a big boost to Can
Can, for
in addition to its artistic
attributes, Pompom’s notoriety paved the way to Can Can’s grand entrance
to the vast landscape of gossips, newspapers columns, “potins” and social
“rubriques”.
As
soon as it was introduced to the Brits by Charles Morton (Father of the
modern Music-hall) and performed for the first time in London in 1861, Can
Can became an international sensation. However, it did not take long, before
Great Britain banned it in England under the pretext that it was too risqué
and immoral. This ban of course fueled the flame of success of this
delightful French madness and added more mysteries and gossips to its
mystique. American businessmen saw it differently. American showbiz tycoons
found in Can Can a gold mine. The first to copy the French Can Can,
metamorphosed it into a showbiz enterprise were of course, the
Americans. They brought it to the United States, made it look like a new
French-American Follies, added more “Salt N Pepa” and extravaganza to it,
Et Voila a Vaudeville-Burlesque-Great Gatsby-Follies-Ziegfeld Bonanza
was created.
Photo, below: The Radio City Rockettes
Photo:
Louise Weber.
One
day, Can Can will deeply influence America’s Rockettes and “Ziegfeld
Follies” and change the geography and choreography of American Cabaret
theater landscape. This is when, why and how the term “Follies” entered the
welcoming world of American Cabaret, Burlesques, Cabaret theatrical Music,
American Cabaret acts, Broadway Musicals, shows on steam boat sailing the
Mississippi, New Orleans foggy Cabarets, night clubs and strip tease joints
on Bourbon Street, and of course , later on inspire “Ziegfeld follies. After
all, “Follies” is French. It
is the plural of “La Follie” meaning madness. And part of its universal
madness was “La Folie de Jeanne Avril and Louise Weber”, co-queens of the
original Can Can.
Missouri Rockets
.jpg)
Photos,
from L to R: #1. Poster of the film "Moulin Rouge", starring Jose Ferrer and
Zsa Zsa Gabor. #2. Poster of the film "French Can Can", starring Jean Gabin,
Francoise Arnoul, Maria Felix and Jean Renoir. Both films rotated around
Louise Weber and Jane Avril Can Can.
The
group first came to life in 1925 as the "Missouri Rockets" and made their
grand show business debut in St. Louis, Missouri; the materialization of a
"life-time dream" of Russell Markert, the creator of the original
Rockets.
"I
had seen the Moulin Rouge Can Can dancers and the John Tiller girls in the
Ziegfeld Follies of 1922," Markert once reminisced. "If I ever got a chance to
get a group of American girls who would be taller and have longer legs and
could do really complicated tap routines and eye-high kicks... they'd knock
your socks off!" At
Radio City's opening night, on December 27, 1932, they did just that. The
Rockettes were discovered and brought to New York by consummate showman S.L. (Roxy)
Rothafel who first dubbed them the "Roxyettes," . The Rockets shared the stage with 17
diverse acts, among them the Flying Wallendas, Ray Bolger and Martha Graham.
Photos
from L to R: #1. Famous French actor, Jean Gabin who had a lot of compassion
and admiration for Louise Weber.
From "La bête humaine" by Jean Renoir (1938).
Gabin was the lover of Marlene Dietrich for many years. #2.
Mexican French
Cinema Beauty, Maria Felix who immortalized Louise Weber's and
Jane Avril's French Can Can.
Can
Can got another national/international boost when it was visually re-created
by Jean Renoir in his backstage musicals. Renoir’s early stage sets depicting
the golden days of the Moulin Rouge which began with its street girls and
virgin peasants from the French province became the backdrops for beautiful, striking
high-kicking chorus girls and their swirling petticoats movies set and
theatrical productions. The most famous picture on Can Can was the 1955
“French Can Can” starring Jean Gabin, the lover of Marilyn Dietrich and the iconic beauty Maria Felix Berger who
immortalized Can Can with her beauty, music, esthetic elegance and acting.
(Maria de Los Angeles Felix Guerena, one of 16 children of a wealthy family
was born in Alamos, on April 8, 1914 and died at the age of 88 on April 8,
2002). A stunning, mesmerizing, super talented star of Mexican and European
films. She was the reigning beauty and female star of the French and Spanish
speaking cinema for three decades.
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