Fifi D'Orsay (born Marie-Rose Angelina Yvonne Lussier; April 16, 1904 – December 2, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress and singer.[2]
Early life
Fifi D'Orsay was born Marie-Rose Angelina Yvonne Lussier[citation needed] in Montreal, Quebec, Canada,[3] to a father who was a postal clerk. The D'Orsays were a large family, with Fifi having 11 siblings. She was educated at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Montreal before graduating and finding work as a secretary.
Biography
As a young stenographer, she wished to become an actress, and moved to New York City.[4] Once there she found work with the Greenwich Village Follies,[3] after an audition in which she sang "Yes! We Have No Bananas" in French. When asked where she was from, she told the director she was from Paris, France, and that she had worked in the Folies Bergère. The impressed director hired her, billing her as "Mademoiselle Fifi".
While working in the Follies, she became involved with Ed Gallagher, a veteran actor who was half of the successful Broadway comedy team of Gallagher and Shean. Gallagher and D'Orsay put together a vaudeville act, and he coached her in the art of show business. After touring in vaudeville, she headed to Hollywood and adopted the surname "D'Orsay" (after a favorite perfume). Soon after she began working in films, often cast as the "naughty French girl" from "gay Paris".
She became a U.S. citizen in 1936, just as her career as a film star came to a sharp halt when she walked out on her contract at Fox Studios and was blacklisted.[5]
While never becoming a major top-billing name, she found steady work, and appeared with such stalwarts as Bing Crosby and Buster Crabbe. For years she worked in both film and vaudeville; pacing her appearances in film with continued performances in vaudeville. When age put an end to the glamour roles, she took jobs in television; including 2 appearances each on ABC's Adventures in Paradise (as a mother superior in the episode "Castaways"), and the CBSlegal dramaPerry Mason (in the episodes "The Case of the Grumbling Grandfather" and "The Case of the Bountiful Beauty")—as well as appearing in the CBS sitcomPete and Gladys. She was a contestant on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life (February 23, 1956), and at the age of 67 she bookended her career with a return to the Broadway stage in the Tony Award-winning musical, Follies.
Personal life
D'Orsay married twice. Her first husband was Earl Hill (also billed as "Maury Hill" & "Morgan Hill"), the son of a Chicago manufacturer. She divorced Hill in 1939 and married Peter LaRicos in 1947, a restaurateur and agent.[5]
^ abUnited Press International (December 4, 1983). "Fifi d'Orsay, Movie Actress; Played French Flirts in 30's". The New York Times. Retrieved December 23, 2013. Fifi d'Orsay, the French Bombshell of 1930's motion pictures who was never able to visit France, has died at the age of 79. Miss d'Orsay was ill with cancer for several months before her death Friday at the Motion Picture and Television Country Hospital in suburban Woodland Hills.
