Ève Lavallière (born Eugénie Marie Pascaline Fenoglio, 1 April 1866 – 10 July 1929) was a French stage actress and later a noteworthy Catholic penitent and member of the Secular Franciscan Order.

Ève Lavallière
Ève Lavallière Circa 1890
Born
Eugénie Marie Pascaline Fenoglio

1 April 1866
Died10 July 1929(1929-07-10) (aged 63)
OccupationActress

Biography edit

Ève Lavallière was born at 8 rue Champ-de-Mars in Toulon. She was the daughter of Louis-Emile Fenoglio, a tailor of Neapolitan origin, and Albania-Marie Rana, who was born in Perpignan. At birth, her parents already had a son. Her birth was not desired, and she was placed, up to school age, with a local family of peasants. At school age, however, she was enrolled by her parents in a private school of excellent reputation. After the death of her parents in tragic circumstances and running away from home she arrived in Paris as a teenager. She became an actress renowned in the Belle Époque, including the Théâtre des Variétés in Paris.

From 1917, she moved to the castle of Choisille, at Chanceaux-sur-Choisille, Indre-et-Loire (later occupied by the Pinder circus). She had a radical religious conversion and became a devout Catholic. She wished to join a religious order and for a time was a medical missionary in Tunisia. She became a Franciscan tertiary, a member of the Secular Franciscan Order or Third Order of St Francis.

She is buried in Thuillières where she died in 1929.

Theater edit

Her most famous roles were in the following:

 
Caricature by Georges Goursat Sem (1902).
 
45 year old Lavallière as a schoolboy in her garçonne haircut, drawing by Daniel de Losques [fr] (1912)

See also edit

References edit

  • (Spanish) Omer Englebert, "Vida y conversion de Eva Lavallière", Mundo Moderno, Biografías y Memorias, Buenos Aires, 1953
  • (Spanish) José María Hernández Gamell, "Una mujer extraordinaria. Vida y conversion de la famosa artista de Paris, Eva Lavallière". Ed. Caballeros Comendadores de Santa Teresita del Niño Jesús y de la Santa Faz, Madrid, 1944; reissue, Afrodisio Aguado, Madrid, 1945
  • (French) Jean-Paul Claudel, Ève Lavallière : Orpheline de la terre ("Ève Lavallière: orphan of the Earth"), Gérard Louis Editor, 2007
  • (English) L.L. McReavy A Modern Magdalen, Eva Lavalliere (1866-1929) (1934)
  • (English) Charlotte Kelly, A Saint of the Stage - Eve Lavalliere Australian Catholic Truth Society No. 775 (1947) http://www.pamphlets.org.au/cts-pamphlets/9-austraila/738-a-saint-of-the-stage-eve-lavalliere.html

External links edit