Other Research
Besides investigating pastry and
candy shops, we have other interests which occupy our time in
Paris. My husband is juggling three different subjects
right now concerning Dewey, Camus, and food.
Part of what I’m working on has to do with famous Americans who have lived
in Paris in the past. Sure, I’ve looked
at those big names featured in Woody Allen’s movie from a few years ago, Midnight in Paris: the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway,
Stein, and company. Today I thought I’d
discuss a couple of personalities worthy of note who are new to me anyway.
One person, whose club was actually
mentioned by the Zelda Fitzgerald character in Allen’s film, is Ada “Bricktop” Smith. Acquiring her nickname because of the red
hair inherited from her Irish father’s side, Bricktop was a popular African-American
entertainer in Chicago and Harlem before being recruited in 1924 by a tiny Parisian club with a big name,
Le Grand Duc. The busboy, who happened to be the future poet Langston
Hughes, consoled her for having given up big clubs in the U. S. for such a small
venue. Branching out on her own a few
years later, she opened a nightspot called Bricktop’s on Montmartre which became renowned
throughout the capital. Band members
performing there sometimes included Duke Ellington and Sidney Bechet. The cigar-smoking Smith taught many club
patrons, including the Duke of Windsor, to do trendy dances like the Black
Bottom. Another visitor to her club, fellow
expatriate Cole Porter, invited her to perform at lavish parties in his ten-room mansion. Porter even composed a tune for Bricktop, Miss Otis Regrets (notably performed by Ella Fitzgerald), which would become Smith's theme song.
Prior to Bricktop, there was Loie
Fuller, a Chicago-born dancer, who came to perform with the Folies-Bergère in
Paris in 1892. Having already achieved
fame in New York with her Serpentine Dance, La
Loïe became the hit of the French capital as well. The acts she choreographed consisted of swirling long drapes of
material around her while being illuminated in various ways that she would design
herself. Author Jean Cocteau praised Fuller’s
dancing and she posed for famous artists such as sculptor Auguste Rodin and
painter Toulouse-Lautrec. Her face is
even engraved in the façade of a building in the 3rd arrondissement. Fuller had her own dance school in Paris and a
troop of dancers, including Isadora Duncan, who toured Europe.
Research of this kind is both fun and frustrating. In what seems like a never-ending number of people, I’ve discovered authors, politicians,
artists, entertainers, and others who have spent time in Paris. Starting with Benjamin Franklin in the
eighteenth century and stretching to Susan Sontag who died in 2004, the list is
long and varied, at least seventy-five
at last count. So, that should keep me out of trouble for a while.
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