Actors - Polaire

	Actors - Polaire

Mlle. Polaire or Pauline Polaire, born May 14, 1874 – died 1939, were the stage names used by singer and actress Emilie Marie Bouchard.

Born at Agha, Algiers, she started her show business career as a cafe singer at the age of 15 and at age 17 she joined her older brother in Paris, France. Eventually adopting the stage name Polaire, she worked as a music hall singer and in 1895, her fame increased significantly when a sketch of her by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec appeared in the satirical magazine, "Le Rire" and again in 1900 when she was painted by Leonetto Cappiello (1875-1942).

Polaire went on to act in the theatre, making her first major stage appearance in 1902 at the Bouffes-Parisiens playing the title role in Colette's play, Claudine à Paris. A gifted comedic actress, the five foot three inch woman became one of the major celebrities of her day. At a time when tightlacing amongst women was in vogue, she was famous for her tiny waist variously reported to be as little as fourteen inches. This accentuated her large bust, said to be a size 38, and talk of her figure and her lavish overdressing in fur coats and dazzling jewels preceded her appearances wherever she went. Jean Lorrain said of her:

:"Polaire! The agitating and agitated Polaire! The tiny slip of a woman that you know, with the waist slender to the point of pain, of screaming out loud, of breaking in two, in a spasmically tight bodice, the prettiest slimness...And, under the aureole of an extravagant masher's hat, orange and plumed with iris leaves, the great voracious mouth, the immense black eyes, ringed, bruised, discoloured, the incandescence of her pupils, the bewildered nocturnal hair, the phosphorus, the sulphur, the red pepper of that ghoulish, Salome-like face, the agitating and agitated Polaire!

:"What a devilish mimic, what a coffee-mill and what a belly-dancer! Yellow skirt tucked high, gloved in open-work stockings, Polaire skips, flutters, wriggles, arches from the hips, the back, the belly, mimes every kind of shock, twists, coils, rears, twirls...trembling like a stuck wasp, miaows, faints to what music and what words! The house, frozen with stupor, forgets to applaud..."

In 1911, as Pauline Polaire, she was cast her in her first silent film role. The following year, she was offered a role in a film by the up-and-coming young director, Maurice Tourneur and with him made six films between 1912 and 1913. She then went back to performing on the musical stage and began a tour of the United States following which she appeared at the London Coliseum. Polaire returned to making films in 1922, acting in another ten films including in talkies between then and 1935.

On her passing in 1939 at age sixty-five, Polaire was interred in the Cimetière du Centre in the eastern Paris suburb of Champigny-sur-Marne.

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