Fifi D'Orsay

Biography

Although she made her career playing the quintessential Parisian coquette, Fifi D'Orsay was actually a Canadian. She was born Yvonne Lussier in Montreal, Québec, in 1904. At the age of 20 she arrived in New York, determined to become an actress. She was met by Helen Morgan, whom she knew from Montreal. Morgan put up the young Yvonne and taught her the ropes about finding jobs. She was soon hired to appear in The Greenwich Village Follies after an audition in which she sang "Yes! We Have No Bananas" in French and told the director that she was an ex-Follies Bèrgere showgirl from Paris. The director renamed her Mademoiselle Fifi". During the run she became involved with vaudeville veteran Edward Gallagher (who, with Al Shean, formed the hit comedy act "Gallagher and Shean"), who was 37 years her senior. He taught her "all the little tricks of the business". She said, "I wanted to learn everything about show business and he taught me - believe me!" She and Gallagher put together a vaudeville act and worked together for two years. When they parted ways, she was teamed with Herman Berrans by noted vaudeville sketch writer Herman Timberg. They put together an act that featured Fifi as a saucy music student and Berrans as her teacher, and it soon became a hit on the Orpheum circuit. Hollywood beckoned and on the strength of a favorable screen test, she dumped her fiancé (Berrans' brother Freddie) and took off for Hollywood. By this time she had adopted the last name "D'Orsay", after her favorite perfume. She continued her career in movies, alternating them with highly paid appearances in vaudeville. In 1950 the Palace Theatre revived vaudeville and Fifi returned to sparkling acclaim. She was one of the first major stars to appear on television in its early days, and later acted in such series as Bewitched (1964), Adventures in Paradise (1959) and Perry Mason (1957), among other shows. In 1971-72, at the age of 67, she appeared on Broadway in the Stephen Sondheim musical "Follies". She played "Solange LaFitte", a former Follies headliner (a character more than just a little reminiscent of her own life and career). Her song "Ah, Paris" was strong and sexy and helped make the cast album a success. "Follies" opened April 4, 1971, at New York's Winter Garden Theatre and ran for 522 performances. It won seven Tony Awards and the New York Drama Critics' Award for Best Musical. Fifi died on December 2, 1983