Dancer, Choreographer. She founded the Bluebell Girls, one of the world's best known group of music hall and cabaret dancers. Abandoned as an infant, she was adopted by a Mrs. Mary Murphy and raised in Liverpool, England. A frail child, she was given her nickname by a doctor who advised ballet lessons to strengthen her legs, and improve her health...by age 14, she was dancing in clubs in England and Europe. At 19, she was a featured performer at the Folies-Bergere, in Paris, where she started the Bluebell Girls in 1932. She ran the troupe until her retirement in 1989, personally recruiting (commonly from ballet schools when young girls grew too tall) and training around 14,000 girls, all of whom had to be at least 5' 10", and meet her standards of appearance and conduct. Miss Bluebell worked with Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf, and Josephine Baker...she could still dance the cancan in her 60s, and supervised two shows a day, seven days a week. In 1939, she married Marcel Leibovici, a Jewish pianist who wrote songs for Piaf. During the war she was briefly interned by the Nazis...returning to Paris, she saved her husband by bribing the concierge of his apartment not to turn him in. In France, she was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, and Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Merite; in 1996, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire. The Bluebell Girls once had troupes in Reno and Las Vegas, and are still performing at the Lido, in Paris.
Dancer, Choreographer. She founded the Bluebell Girls, one of the world's best known group of music hall and cabaret dancers. Abandoned as an infant, she was adopted by a Mrs. Mary Murphy and raised in Liverpool, England. A frail child, she was given her nickname by a doctor who advised ballet lessons to strengthen her legs, and improve her health...by age 14, she was dancing in clubs in England and Europe. At 19, she was a featured performer at the Folies-Bergere, in Paris, where she started the Bluebell Girls in 1932. She ran the troupe until her retirement in 1989, personally recruiting (commonly from ballet schools when young girls grew too tall) and training around 14,000 girls, all of whom had to be at least 5' 10", and meet her standards of appearance and conduct. Miss Bluebell worked with Maurice Chevalier, Edith Piaf, and Josephine Baker...she could still dance the cancan in her 60s, and supervised two shows a day, seven days a week. In 1939, she married Marcel Leibovici, a Jewish pianist who wrote songs for Piaf. During the war she was briefly interned by the Nazis...returning to Paris, she saved her husband by bribing the concierge of his apartment not to turn him in. In France, she was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, and Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Merite; in 1996, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire. The Bluebell Girls once had troupes in Reno and Las Vegas, and are still performing at the Lido, in Paris.
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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