TeaWithTater.com

Mistinguett
Mistinguett
	Mistinguett by Paul Nadar (son of Nadar)

Anne Lister
Anne Lister
	Anne Lister, c. 1830. Portrait by Joshua Horner

Today is the birthday of Anne Lister (Halifax, United Kingdom 3 April 1791 – 22 September 1840 Kutaisi, Georgia); Yorkshire landowner, diarist, mountaineer and traveller. Throughout her life she kept diaries which chronicled the details of her daily life, including her lesbian relationships, her financial concerns, her industrial activities and her work improving Shibden Hall. Her diaries contain more than 4,000,000 words and about a sixth of them—those concerning the intimate details of her romantic and sexual relationships—were written in code. The code, derived from a combination of algebra and Ancient Greek, was deciphered in the 1980s. Lister is often called “the first modern lesbian” for her clear self-knowledge and openly lesbian lifestyle. Called “Fred” by her lover and “Gentleman Jack” by Halifax residents, she suffered from harassment for her sexuality, and recognised her similarity to the Ladies of Llangollen, whom she visited.

In 1804 Lister was sent to the Manor House School in York (in the King’s Manor buildings), where she would meet her first love, Eliza Raine (1791–1869). Eliza and her sister Jane were the very rich daughters of an East India Company surgeon in Madras, brought to Yorkshire after his death. Anne and Eliza met and shared a bedroom aged 13 at boarding school, but Anne was asked to leave after two years. She rejoined the school after Eliza had left. Eliza expected to live with Anne as an adult, but Anne began affairs with Isabella Norcliffe and Mariana Belcombe, day-pupils at the school. In despair and frustration Eliza became a patient at Clifton Asylum, run by Mariana’s father Dr Belcombe. While being educated at home Lister developed an interest in classical literature. In a surviving letter to her aunt from 3 February 1803, a young Lister explains “My library is my greatest pleasure… The Grecian History had please me much.“

Her wealth allowed her some measure of freedom to live as she pleased. She inherited the family estate on her aunt’s death in 1836, Shibden Hall, but took charge of it from 1826.

Lister is described as having a “masculine appearance”; one of her lovers, Marianna Lawton (née Belcombe), was initially ashamed to be seen in public with her because her appearance was commented on. She dressed entirely in black and took part in many activities that were not perceived as the norm for gentlewomen, such as opening and owning a colliery. Lawton and Lister were lovers for several years, including a period during which Lawton was married and had her husband’s permission.

Lister’s subsequent affair with a wealthy heiress, Ann Walker, whom she met in 1832, was a story of local repute and her eventual marriage (without legal recognition) to Walker in 1834 was highly unusual. The couple lived together an Shibden Hall until Lister’s death in 1840. Walker’s fortune was used to improve Shibden Hall and the property’s waterfall and lake. Lister renovated Shibden Hall quite significantly to her own design. In 1838 she added a Gothic tower to the main house, to serve as her private library. She also had a tunnel dug under the building which allowed the staff to move about without disturbing her.

In 1830 while travelling in France, Lister was the first woman to ascend Monte Perdido in the Aragonese Pyrenees. In 1838, she came back to the Pyrenees with Walker and completed the first “official” ascent of the Vignemale (3,298 metres (10,820 ft)). In France she was known as Ann Lister or Lady Lister only for this accomplishment.

Lister is buried in St Anne’s church, Southowram, West Yorkshire

Anne Lister died on 22 September 1840 aged 49 of a fever at Koutais (now Kutaisi, Georgia) while travelling with Ann Walker. Walker, to whom ownership of Shibden Hall passed, had Lister’s body embalmed and brought back to the UK, where she is buried in the parish church in Halifax, West Yorkshire. Ann Walker died in 1854 at her childhood home, Cliff Hill in Lightcliffe.

at the Moulin Rouge

Today is the birthday of Mistinguett (Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois; Enghien-les-Bains, Île-de-France, France; 3 April 1875 – 5 January 1956 Bougival, Île-de-France, France); actress and singer. She was at one time the highest-paid female entertainer in the world.

At an early age Bourgeois aspired to be an entertainer. She began as a flower seller in a restaurant in her hometown, singing popular ballads as she sold blossoms. After taking classes in theatre and singing, she began her career as an entertainer in 1885. One day on the train to Paris for a violin lesson, she met Saint-Marcel, who directed the revue at the Casino de Paris. He engaged her first as a stage-hand, and here she began to pursue her goal to become an entertainer, experimenting with various stage-names, being successively Miss Helyett, Miss Tinguette, Mistinguette and, finally, Mistinguett. In the 1880’s Mistinguett visited her neighbor Anna Thibaud to ask for advice. Thibaud told her, “To succeed in the theatre … you must be pretty. You must excite men.” Mistinguett asked if she meant that she had to excite the crowds. Thibaud repeated, “No, the men!”

Bourgeois made her debut as Mistinguett at the Casino de Paris in 1895 and went on to appear in venues such as the Folies Bergère, Moulin Rouge and Eldorado. Her risqué routines captivated Paris, and she went on to become the most popular French entertainer of her time and the highest-paid female entertainer in the world, known for her flamboyance and a zest for the theatrical. In 1919 her legs were insured for 500,000 francs.

Mistinguett never married. She also had a long relationship with Maurice Chevalier, 13 years her junior.

She first recorded her signature song, “Mon Homme”, in 1916. It was popularised under its English title “My Man” by Fanny Brice and has become a standard in the repertoire of numerous pop and jazz singers.

During a tour of the United States, Mistinguett was asked by Time magazine to explain her popularity. Her answer was, “It is a kind of magnetism. I say ‘Come closer’ and draw them to me.”

Mistinguett died in Bougival, France, at the age of 80, attended by her son, a doctor. She is buried in the Cimetière Enghien-les-Bains, Île-de-France, France.

Upon her death, writer Jean Cocteau observed in an obituary, “Her voice, slightly off-key, was that of the Parisian street hawkers—the husky, trailing voice of the Paris people. She was of the animal race that owes nothing to intellectualism. She incarnated herself. She flattered a French patriotism that was not shameful. It is normal now that she should crumble, like the other caryatids of that great and marvelous epoch that was ours”.