[Dixielandjazz] The Passing of an Original

[Steve barbone]

Those of us who were lucky enough to see this incomparable lady perform will
never forget her. T'is the end of an era. Where have all the Cabaret's gone?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Hildegarde, Cabaret Artist, Is Dead at 99

By ENID NEMY August 1, 2005 NY Times

Hildegarde, whose career as an international cabaret chanteuse spanned
almost seven decades and who was credited with starting the single-name
vogue among entertainers, died on Friday at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill
Cornell hospital. She was 99.

Her death was confirmed Saturday by her longtime friend and manager, Don
Dellair.

A regal figure in couture gowns, jeweled glasses, glittering earrings and,
in her later years, a curly platinum wig, Hildegarde influenced a number of
performers. She accompanied herself on the piano, always in her trademark
long white gloves, and, fluttering a lace handkerchief, chatted between
numbers, often poking fun at herself.

"Hildegarde was perhaps the most famous supper-club entertainer who ever
lived," Liberace once said. "I used to absorb all the things she was doing,
all the showmanship she created. It was marvelous to watch her, wearing
elegant gowns, surrounded with roses and playing with white gloves on. They
used to literally roll out the red carpet for her."

Although Liberace said he was careful not to imitate her, he did take a
single stage name and used "I'll Be Seeing You," one of her best-known
numbers, as his theme song.

Usually billed as the Incomparable Hildegarde, an orchid bestowed on her by
Walter Winchell, she was at the peak of her popularity in the 1930's and
40's, when she was booked in plush hotel cabaret rooms and supper clubs at
least 45 weeks a year. At one engagement in 1946, she was paid $17,500 a
week and 50 percent of the gross over $80,000. She was on the cover of Life
magazine in 1939, had a Top 10 radio show and traveled with her own
orchestra and several dozen pieces of luggage.

Her recordings of such songs as "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup," "The Last
Time I Saw Paris" and "Lili Marlene" became worldwide hits. Revlon
introduced a Hildegarde shade of lipstick and nail polish, a nursery named a
rose for her, and a linen company, picking up on the way she signed her
autograph, introduced a "Bless You" handkerchief.

Hildegarde's admirers ranged from enlisted men and officers during World War
II to the Duke of Windsor. In 1961 she was the guest of honor at a gala at
which Eleanor Roosevelt presented her with an award naming her First Lady of
the Supper Clubs.

>From the 1950's through the 70's, in addition to working in cabaret and
recording albums, she appeared in a number of television specials and toured
with the national company of the Stephen Sondheim musical "Follies." Her
autobiography, "Over 50 ... So What!" was published by Doubleday in 1963.
She was in a 1979 revival of the 1927 musical "The Five O'Clock Girl" at the
Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Conn., and took part in a tour of "The
Big Broadcast of 1944," which recreated radio programs of that year. She
also did a number of lecture tours at universities and auditoriums, singing,
playing, chatting and answering questions.

Born Hildegarde Loretta Sell in Adell, Wis., to German immigrant parents,
she began her career in Milwaukee at the age of 16 when, as a music student
at Marquette University, she played the piano in a silent movie house. In
1928 she joined a vaudeville troupe, toured for two seasons and then spent a
year as an accompanist to various performers. She arrived in New York by way
of Camden, N.J., where she struck up a friendship with Anna Sosenko, her
landlady's daughter and a budding songwriter, who became the architect of
her career. 

"Anna was determined to be a songwriter," Hildegarde once said. "She made me
go with her to New York to sing her work to publishers." For a time,
Hildegarde took a job as a song plugger for Irving Berlin. She emerged as
the one-name Hildegarde after an audition with Gus Edwards, the impresario,
who suggested she lose her surname.Sosenko became her business manager and
the two traveled, lived and collected art together for 23 years.

Sosenko wrote "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup," which became Hildegarde's
signature song, and was the singer's partner until 1955, when the
relationship dissolved. The friendship resumed two decades later.

Although most of her career was in the United States, Hildegarde was engaged
to appear at the Café de Paris in London when she was in her early 20's. She
was not a great success, but the experience led her and Sosenko to take off
for Paris to learn the art of cabaret.

They remained there for three years. Sosenko helped her perfect her
technique, and she acquired an international flavor by learning to sing in
French, Russian, Italian and Swedish. She also developed the precise diction
that made every word clear and reduced her slight German accent.

Her name became synonymous with the best clubs on both sides of the
Atlantic. In 1934, she sang at the Ritz Hotel in London during the Duke of
Kent's wedding festivities. The next year she was back for King George V's
jubilee, and she returned in 1937 for King George VI's coronation. She also
appeared in several British movies and stage revues.

During the zenith of her career in the 40's, Hildegarde's name appeared on
best-dressed lists, and people were stunned when she said she spent $10,000
a year on clothes. By the 60's, the sum had risen to $30,000.

"I rarely look back," she said as she approached 90. "That's part of the
secret of staying young."

She leaves no immediate survivors, her manager, Mr. Dellair, said.

During a 1993 performance at Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel, Hildegarde said:
"Wrinkle, wrinkle, leave me alone. Go and sliver Sharon Stone."

"I can't imagine myself not performing," she said in 1995. "I like to be in
harness. I'm good, I know I'm good, and I'm ready."

Another cabaret legend, Bobby Short, who died this year at 80, once said,
"Hers was the slickest nightclub act of all time."