The most beautiful illusion - Francis Renault

Circa 1925. (The inscribed dates on some of these photographs do not necessarily reflect the date they were taken.)

Francis Renault (born Antonio Auriemma; 5 August or September 1895 (or 1893), Naples, Italy - 29 May 1955), female impersonator or "femme mimic".

Circa early 1920s. (Five images.)

Raised in Providence, Rhode Island, he began his career in Vaudeville under his given name while still a young boy; he was known for a lovely soprano voice, a voice which had already attracted the attention of the likes of Mrs. William McKinley, the president's widow. Early on, while still a teenager, he apparently met and was inspired by the female impersonator Julian Eltinge, a great celebrity of the time. Soon enough he was himself performing in drag, as "Auriema", having dropped his first name and an "m" from his last. Success in this new incarnation came quickly.

Circa 1910s.

Circa 1903 (?).

1914.

1914.

He became known for the lavish costumes he wore, his impressive falsetto voice - "Auriema" appears on many sheet music covers, and it's possible he performed those songs on stage - and his impressions of famous ladies, from Lillian Russell to Cleopatra to Catherine the Great. Late in 1914, still only about twenty, he changed his billing to "Mr. Francis Renault", variously subtitled "Parisian Fashion Plate", "The Slave of Fashion", etc.

Circa 1913, while still billed as Auriema. The song is by none other than Irving Berlin.

Detail of above.

Circa 1925, now billed as Francis Renault. The songwriters Kahn and Donaldson were celebrated contributors to the Great American Songbook.

After his great success in Vaudeville, in 1922 he made the switch to the world of the musical revue. The following year he traveled to Europe, performing in England and France. Not long after his return, it appears he opened his own club - the Club Francis Renault - in Atlantic City. (But I've found other mention of a "Club Renault" in Manhattan, referenced as late as the early Thirties. I don't know if this was a different club or just a confusion of location.)

1923. This looks to be a passport photograph.

Again, the inscribed date on some of these photographs is not contemporary with the image; this was taken much earlier than 1937-8.

His stage wardrobe was extensive and costly, worth tens of thousands of dollars, and always a selling point for his appearances. During his engagements at some theaters, his gowns were put on display in the lobby, so that his audiences could get a closer look and marvel at their lavish beauty and superb craftsmanship.

1918.

Detail of above. If you look closely, you can seen that his gloved fingers have been retouched to make them look smaller, daintier.

"As Cleopatra at Carnegie Hall", circa early 1920s.

It appears that he sometimes got into trouble for wearing some of those gowns off stage; he was arrested and released on several occasions for public female impersonation, notably in Dallas and Atlanta. Public cross-dressing was illegal in the country at the time, and drag performers were usually very circumspect away from the theater; Renault's predecessor and inspiration, the great Eltinge, always effected a very butch persona when out in public.

He continued to tour, performing in clubs and legitimate theaters well into the Forties, his costumes always fully exploited for publicity purposes, his act - impressions, humor, music - all a variation on what he'd been performing since the beginning of his career.

1940s. (Seven images.)

Dressed for his impression of Lillian Russell, one of his most enduring characterizations. (Four images.)

As "Madam DuBarry". These last two images are both inscribed "Francis or Tony"; Antonio was his actual name.

One source reports Renault contracting Polio in 1945, and it being two years and multiple surgeries before he was able to perform again. But reviewing programmes for his performances during that time - several of them at Carnegie Hall; during his career, he apparently appeared there more than forty times - would show that to be highly unlikely. It looks like he performed as late as 1953. In December of the next year, Walter Winchell reports him going in for surgery at a New York hospital, and he died the following May at the age of fifty-nine. (Eltinge had died at the same age, fourteen years before.)

Circa 1918.

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Most of the information I've sourced to concoct this post and almost all of the images were found on the wonderful Queer Music Heritage website. The author, J. D. Doyle, mentioned that the images are from a scrapbook that was being sold on Ebay. (Which he sadly wasn't able to acquire.) What a treasure!

La Comtesse d'Artois et ses enfants, by Charles Emmanuel Leclercq, 1783.

The comtesse d'Artois, born Maria Teresa of Savoy (31 January 1756, Turin – 2 June 1805, Graz), who I wrote about recently, giving the briefest biography, had four children with her philandering husband, the future Charles X. Their first, Louis Antoine, duc d'Angoulême (6 August 1775, Versailles – 3 June 1844, Gorizia, Austria/Italy) was, for many years after the Revolution, heir presumptive to the Bourbon throne, and dauphin after his father became king in 1824. In 1799 he had been married to his first cousin, Marie Thérèse, the only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. They would have no children.

The comtesse with her younger son, the five-year-old, Charles Ferdinand.

Their second child, Sophie (5 August 1776, Versailles – 5 December 1783, Versailles), was the first Bourbon princess of her generation; Marie Antoinette's first child, Marie Thérèse, would not be born for two more years. The princess would die at the age of seven in the same year that this family portrait was painted.

The elder son, eight-year-old Louis Antoine, and seven-year-old Sophie.

Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry (24 January 1778, Versailles – 14 February 1820, Paris), was the third child. In 1816, after the Bourbon Restoration, he married Princess Maria-Carolina of Naples, with whom he had four children. (Both of the first two only lived for a day. He also produced numerous illegitimate offspring, both before and after his marriage.) In 1820, leaving the opera with his wife, he was stabbed, mortally wounded, and died the next day. The assassin was a Bonapartist opposed to the restored Bourbon monarchy. Seven months after his death, his wife gave birth to their fourth child, Henri, who is known in history as the comte de Chambord, and who in the view of Legitimists, was rightful heir to the throne of France. (Chambord would marry, but the marriage was childless; with his death in 1883, the legitimate male line of the main branch of the Bourbon monarchy became extinct.)

The fourth child, Marie Thérèse (6 January 1783, Versailles – 22 June 1783, Château de Choisy), died at only five months of age in the same year as this portrait was completed, presumably before it was even begun, as she doesn't appear in the painting.

***

Charles Emmanuel Joseph Leclercq (1753, Brussels - 1821, Brussels), Flemish artist.  Leclercq - or Le Clercq - was one of the many artists working in Paris on the eve of the Revolution, producing small, highly decorative, but rather insipid and - frankly - often quite crude paintings, mostly portraits and genre scenes. It appears Leclercq studied in Rome from 1777 to 1780, and then worked in Paris from 1783 to 1790; it's likely the Revolution spurred his departure. I've been able to find no other information on this artist.

(Part of the frame seems to be missing in this photograph of the painting.)

Best of friends - Cary Grant and Randolph Scott chez eux

We'll probably never know for sure. Though the rumors began almost immediately, though there have been several first-hand reports that they were definitely a couple, there's also been plenty of backlash against that notion, testimony from friends and relations that that just wasn't true. There is, of course, strong motivation for taking either position. Many are offended at the "queering" of a legend, think it a retroactive slander. While others see it as correction, a reclamation of our queer history. But what would constitute conclusive evidence at this point? Whatever the truth of their actual private lives, there is plenty of visual documentation of the public "private". Here they are, handsomely and happily "at home". Were they just the best of pals, or were they hiding in plain sight?

They met on the Paramount lot in 1932 and, that same year, costarred in the Pre-Code Hot Saturday, Grant's first role as a leading man. The two up and coming actors soon moved in together, and cohabited on and off for the next twelve years, sharing a Santa Monica beach house and another house in Los Feliz. During that time, they both had brief first marriages - Scott would go on to marry a second time, while Grant eventually clocked five nuptials - but would move back in together after the marriages ended, or even well before. Grant's first wife, Virginia Cherrill, who he'd impulsively married in 1934, left him after seven months, citing abuse and neglect, but they weren't divorced for another six months. In the meantime, the two men had resumed their living arrangements. They apparently last shared digs in 1944, but remained life-long - though much less proximal - friends.

The portrait photographs here have been attributed to both John Engstead and Jerome Zerbe, but I haven't been able to verify either/both.

The dog was apparently named Archie; Grant's actual name was Archie Leach.

Next up on the piano, "I Get a Kick Out of You".

With Archie.

Well, what do you think...?