1. Yvonne Printemps went on the stage in Paris at the age of 12, and at 21 she was singled out by the actor, director and playwright Sacha Guitry as a leading lady.
14 Facts About Yvonne Printemps
1. 2.
Yvonne Printemps never remarried, but had a personal and professional partnership with the actor Pierre Fresnay which lasted until his death in 1975.
3.
Yvonne Printemps was dancing at the Folies Bergere at the age of 13.
4.
Yvonne Printemps was given the sobriquet Printemps by her fellow chorus members because of her sunny disposition, and adopted it as her stage name.
5.
Yvonne Printemps appeared in small roles in light musical shows such as Les Contes de Perrault.
6.
Yvonne Printemps was sometimes tempted, perhaps, to prolong her top notes unduly in order to show off her brilliant breath control, and to yield rather too easily to demands for encores.
7.
Guitry soon remarried; Yvonne Printemps never did so, but became the personal and professional partner of the actor Pierre Fresnay.
8.
Yvonne Printemps's singing of the big romantic number, "I'll follow my secret heart", was the highlight of the show.
9.
Fresnay too won excellent reviews, and his stage partnership with Yvonne Printemps was greatly admired.
10.
In 1937, Yvonne Printemps had another great success in musical comedy with Oscar Straus's Drei Waltzer, given in French as Trois valses.
11.
In 1946 Yvonne Printemps had another hit in Marcel Achard's Aupres de ma blonde.
12.
Yvonne Printemps continued to perform on stage until she was well into her sixties, and remained active with Fresnay, co-directing the Theatre de la Michodiere in Paris with him until his death in 1975.
13.
Yvonne Printemps died in the Paris suburb of Neuilly in 1977 aged 82.
14.
Yvonne Printemps is interred with Fresnay in the Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery.