Biography

Famous for her 13 inch corsetted waist.

Her most successful period professionally was from the mid-1890s to the beginning of the Great War (First World War).

Talk of her figure and her lavish overdressing in fur coats and dazzling jewels preceded her appearances wherever she went.

Her first major appearance was in 1902, at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens, in the title role of a play based on Colette's Claudine à Paris.

For her 1910 supposed "debut" in New York, she provocatively allowed herself to be billed in the advance publicity as "the ugliest woman in the world". When departing on a transatlantic liner, she was apparently accompanied by a "black slave".