Fifi D'Orsay (1904-1983)

The former Yvonne Lussier, of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Fifi D'Orsay had been trained as a typist but came to New York in the wake of Anna Held and Irene Bordoni, the original “Ooh la la” type musical comedy performers. She never reached Held and Bordoni's fame on the Great White Way – in fact, she didn't reach Broadway until the age of 66 when she became one of the old gals in “Follies” – but joined the chorus line in the “Greenwich Village Follies.” Broadway humorist turned movie star Will Rogers brought her to Hollywood and she joined him as his foil in both They Had to See Paris (1929) and Young As You Feel (1931). The Girl from Calgary was a rare starring role and, as we shall see, depended entirely too much on her slight talents – but she was really better in support. She filmed less frequently after 1935 but “Follies,” of course, gave her a nostalgic sheen and she did television until the early 1970s, after which she retired to New Hope, PA. Known as the “French Bombshell,” D'Orsay actually never left North America and when she won a trip to Paris appearing on Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life, she exchanged the ticket for cash.

The Girl from Calgary (Monogram, 1932) PD **
A couple of New York impresarios, Larry and Monte (Paul Kelly and Eddie Featherstone), persuade Calgary chantoos Fifi Follette (Fifi D'Orsay) and her roommate Maizie (Astrid Allwyn) to accompany them to New York, where Larry assures them jobs on Broadway. Fifi quickly wins a beauty contest in Atlantic City and soon her charm and talent have won over not only Broadway producer Earl Darrell (Edwin Maxwell) but his rich backer, Bill Webster (Robert Warwick). That's pretty much all there is to this story, except that Webster attempts to win Fifi away from Larry, who has fallen in love with her. Larry pretends that he is fine with Fifi selling herself to Webster, but of course isn't and tries to win her back.

How about this for make-believe: Fifi D'Orsay, who is perhaps cute but certainly no raving beauty, wins a major contest in Atlantic City (take a wild guess as to which one!) As a singer, she is adequate at best, but wins the starring role in a big Broadway musical (and haven't we seen that wildly applauding first night crowd a million times before?), performing no less than three solo numbers wearing a bunch of feathers on her head and a short skirt that combined do nothing for her figure. No wonder that the much prettier Astrid Allwyn, who suffers a severe case of lower billing, goes green with envy. (Allwyn made a career of playing jealous girls, notably in Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1939]). Perhaps I am being too hard on Fifi D'Orsay – and considering her later success I may actually be – but she really is the whole show here and that is just too tall an order.

Walking in and out of the various theatrical front offices visited by Fifi and her impresario in The Girl from Calgary are several interesting starlets, including Geraldine Dvorak (1904-1985) who, aside from playing one of Bela Lugosi's vampire brides in Dracula (1931), was Greta Garbo's stand-in at MGM; and Kathryn Sergava (1910-2005),a former ballerina from Russian Georgia who, very briefly, was Warner Bros.' answer to Garbo herself. It was poor Miss Sergava who in 2003 was pronounced prematurely dead by a New York columnist causing a truly memorable headline: “Dead Wrong!” And then there is Geneva Mitchell (1908-1949; photo left), a stunning beauty who had come to Hollywood in 1929 with quite a pedigree as a “Ziegfeld Follies” show girl (the 1920 “Midnight Frolic” and the 1921 “Follies”). Yet here she is in a silent bit but showing her shapely legs and making yet another unfair comparison to the rather dumpy Miss D'Orsay. Mitchell later earned a contract with Columbia, a minor step up, I suppose, but her films remained solidly in the B category. Today, she is remembered only for the three shorts she made with the Stooges: Pop Goes the Easel, Hoi Polloi, and Restless Knights (all 1935). Sadly, she died too young from an undisclosed illness.