Right up there with Anita Berber, Olga Desmond and Louise Brooks in our own personal Hall of Fame of wild and wonderful women, there's Eva Tanguay. Not just content to be sexually emancipated in her personal life, she made it the overarching theme of her career with songs like "It's All Been Done Before But Not the Way I Do It," "I Want Someone to Go Wild With Me" and "Go As Far As You Like".
She was infamous for her costumes made of money (dresses created entirely from stitched-together dollar bills, and a coat covered with shiny new pennies for sequins) and her temper (she once threw a stagehand down a flight of stairs during a stay in Louisville, KY).
Aleister Crowley himself saw her act and declared her a genius, "the perfect American artist, starry chaste in her colossal corruption".
Tragically, she made only two films in her entire career (Energetic Eva in 1916 and The Wild Girl in 1917) and but one lone audio recording, which you can hear here:
Eva Tanguay - I Don't Care
I would love to post an MP3 of me singing with our "Low Budget Band", called, "No Limitz" - I am a third cousin of Eva Tanguay. My Great Grandfather was a younger brother to her father. I have recently learned that we are also related to Theresa Tanguay the mother of Celine Dion - which might be why her mom, Theresa looks so much like my Aunt and two of my Great Aunts! I have been singing since age 5 and around age 11 started getting comments from people that thought I looked and sounded a tiny bit like Celine Dion! Now I have learned why - she is actually related to us - I guess she is a cousin - How removed I have no idea! But oddly even our birth weight is the same, and a lot of other similarities - which are I guess just a bit more than a genetic fluke? Regardless I'd love to post my singing here - if that is okay? And some pictures!
ReplyDeleteJoanna Lauren W.
Joanna,
ReplyDeleteI know this is a strange site to post this request, but my best friend's family is somehow related to Eva Tanguay and we are looking for the connection. Would you share your genealogy with us?
Diana Needham, Port Hueneme, CA
presdmn@gmail.com