Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Eva On the Eve



Miss Eva Tanguay got held up
     By park police polite;
Although ‘twas dusk she didn’t have
     A single auto light.
She paid the fine just like a man
     Then caused the judge to stare
By saying as she jumped her car:
     “So long, Judge, I don’t care!”



May 26, ‘10
 
Eva Tanguay (August 1, 1878 – January 11, 1947) was a Canadian singer and entertainer who billed herself as "the girl who made vaudeville famous".
Although she possessed only an average voice, the enthusiasm with which the robust Eva Tanguay performed her suggestive songs soon made her an audience favorite. She went on to have a long-lasting vaudeville career and eventually commanded one of the highest salaries of any performer of the day earning as much as $3,500 a week at the height of her fame around 1910.

From ‘Eva Tanguay; the “I Don’t Care” girl’:
Eva Tanguay, the ebullient music-hall performer, who made the song “I Don’t Care,” known the country over, was one of the outstanding headliners in the days of “big-time” two-a-day vaudeville. At the height of her career her salary ranked with that of Sarah Bernhardt and Nora Bayes, amounting to $2,500 to $3,500 for two shows a day in the Keith-Albee vaudeville circuit. Everywhere she played she attracted capacity audiences to see her act, which was unique because of her songs, her madcap humor, her freakish costumes and her crop of tousled hair.




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