Eva Tanguay

Eva Tanguay went to the United States with her parents at an early age and began working on stage when she was just eight years old. She appeared on Broadway in the 1901 production of My Lady which ran for three months. In 1902 she was in The Chaperones which last just two weeks but one year later, 1903, she headlined her own comedy troupe, making her “vaudeville” debut at Hammerstein’s Victoria in New York in 1904. Her combination of exuberance and suggestive songs made her a tremendous audience favourite and she is usually known as “the girl who made vaudeville famous.” She eventually commanded the highest salary in vaudeville making as much as $3,500 a week by 1910. She retired from show business in the 1930s having appeared in only two silent movies. In 1953 Mitzi Gaynor starred as Eva Tanguay in the film, The I Don’t Care Girl. That title came from her most famous song, ‘I Don’t Care What Happens to Me’ which perfectly reflected her stage personality.