Barbette, enfin ! - photographs by Gaston Paris, Théâtre de l'Empire, Paris, 1937

How have I not yet posted about Barbette? Actually, I was certain that I had. I had to scour over more than a decade of posts to prove to myself that I hadn't. Alright, let this be the first, then. There are certain to be further posts about the aerial artist that the "astonished" and adoring Cocteau called "Un chef-d'œuvre théâtral. Un ange, une fleur, un oiseau." But here, with these images, I begin at the end; the very next year, Barbette ceased to exist. Texas-born Vander Clyde Broadway lived his remaining thirty-five years off-stage, never again willing - or, sadly, able - to venture into the spotlight.

The facts of Vander Clyde Broadway/Barbette's life are blurry at best. But here, such as it is, is his not entirely creditable Wikipedia page.

But then there's the man, himself, in this fascinating essay by Cocteau's biographer, Frances Steegmuller, which appeared in The New Yorker in 1969.