I was watching an old
movie the other evening and heard a character describe herself as an
"entrepreneuse". Never having heard the word before, along with the
plummy accent the actress affected for the role, it took a moment for the term
to register. Once my brain caught up with my ears, I realized how she had
identified her vocation: a female entrepreneur. In today's world we strive to
avoid gender-specific titles, not only to sidestep accusations of sexism but
because anything a man can do, a woman can do while going backwards and wearing
heels. Which, in my opinion, should prevent women from becoming Uber drivers
but government regulations insist otherwise.
Performers such as Amy
Schumer and Sarah Silverman are today referred to as "comedians"
rather than "comediennes". When I was growing up, variety programs
like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were
popular on TV. Each week's installment was likely to feature a woman introduced
as a "comedienne": Phyllis Diller, Totie Fields, Joan Rivers. While
Diller and Fields are long gone, Joan Rivers’ career lasted right up until her
untimely death in 2014, by which time she was called just a "plastic
surgery nightmare" -- every bit the equal of men like Kenny Rogers or
Carrot Top.
I racked my brain to
come up with all the other "-euse" words I could recall:
- Chanteuse: A woman who really can't sing yet
appears in a nightclub where smoking is still permitted. Historically, the
term is most closely associated with French performer Édith
Pilaf, an international sensation best known for her timeless
hit, "La Vie en Arroz".
- Chartreuse: A truly hideous color unless your wife is
wearing something featuring it, in which case it's best acknowledged as
"retro".
- Pampleneuse: A female grapefruit
Perhaps I didn't so much
rack my brain as give it a gentle squeeze.
The movie I was watching
was The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, released in 1939 and
starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The Castles were essentially the
Astaire and Rogers of their day: a husband and wife team who introduced the
tango, among other dances, to European and American audiences. The couple was
popular before the advent of movies as we know them, so they gained fame performing in ballroom settings and theater
stages. Their signature dance was known as the "Castle Walk", which
was recreated in the movie and can best be described as a man and woman, both
named "Castle", walking around the perimeter of the dance floor. Occasionally
they would break into a sideways skip before bringing it down a notch and
returning to walking. Inexplicably, this became an international sensation,
with society-types quickly adopting the dance because it relieved them from
anything requiring coordination or rhythm or the need to actually, you know --
dance. But back in 1910s the Castles were a big freaking deal, becoming
superstars not only for their routines but also lending their names to dance
studios, nightclubs (where maybe they met a chanteuse or teu), footwear and
other fashionable clothing items. Irene was also the Jennifer Aniston of her
times; she got a short trim that came to be known as the "Castle Bob"
and women across the country flocked to hair salons to have their tresses so
coiffed, coming home to show off the style to spouses who, just as today, didn’t
notice anything different.
The film ended on a
tragic note, which at first I thought was dramatized for cinematic input but learned
was true -- Vernon Castle, who was English by birth, enlisted in the Royal
Flying Corps during WWI (receiving the Croix de Guerre for his actions in
combat) and died in a plane crash in 1918 while serving as a flight instructor.
He essentially sacrificed himself because he always insisted on taking the
front seat in a Jenny biplane's cockpit so his trainees would be safer sitting
in the rear. To avoid a mid-air collision with another cadet's plane, he
stalled while attempting a steep climb and crashed, killing him but leaving his
rear-seat student with only minor injuries. While I'm sure this was tragic in
real life, the cinematic version was made unintentionally hilarious due to the
flying recreations using then-state of the art special effects; i.e., model
planes "flying" via the use of hidden sticks and the dramatic
"crash" looking as though the model was dropped into one of those
dioramas you'd make for elementary school projects.
The movie came to a
rapid conclusion after Vernon's/Astaire's demise, even though Irene lived on
and had a pretty interesting second act -- briefly continuing her showbiz
career, remarrying several times and eventually becoming an animal rights
activist -- until her death at age 75 in 1969. The Hollywood version of their
lives skipped over lots of other interesting tidbits: the Castles toured with
an all-black orchestra; their long-time personal assistant (played in the movie
by the inestimable, and very white, Walter Brennan) was also a black man; their manager (the "entrepreneuse" mentioned earlier) was reportedly
a lesbian – although the movie hinted at this since the character met the
Castles while she was travelling through Europe with a female companion. Of
course, two women can travel though Europe and share a hotel room and that
doesn't necessarily mean they are gay. Whereas if two dudes were to do that,
the odds change dramatically. In fact, that story was made into a movie a few
years ago -- J. Edgar.
The Castles' story
strikes me as a film begging for a modern-day remake, a la Moulin Rouge! as directed by Baz Luhmann. Their lives contain so
many elements of dramatic and societal significance: the nature of fame, the
impact of war, issues involving race, class distinctions and sexual identity,
animal rights -- all wrapped up in romance and with plenty of opportunities for
big production numbers where populations of entire cities break out in vigorous
walking. And when the scene is recreated -- where the entrepreneuse first meets
the dancing couple -- she can stand tall and proudly proclaim her modern-day
identity:" I... AM... A... MOMAGER!"
Oh, sorry -- that
dialogue is from another script under development: The Story of the
Kardashian Clan -- Episode 1: What A Bunch Of Entrepre-losers.
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