Published in 2012
320 pages
What is this book about?
In her day, Eva Tanguay (1879-1947) was one of the most famous women in America. Widely known as the “I Don’t Care Girl” –named after a song she popularized and her independent, even brazen persona– Tanguay established herself as a vaudeville and musical comedy star in 1901 with the New York City premiere of the show My Lady –and never looked back. Tanguay was, at the height of a long career that stretched until the early 1930s, a trend-setting performer who embodied the emerging ideal of the bold and sexual female entertainer. Whether suggestively singing songs with titles like “It’s All Been Done Before But Not the Way I Do It” and “Go As Far As You Like” or wearing a daring dress made of pennies, she was a precursor to subsequent generations of performers, from Mae West to Madonna and Lady Gaga, who have been both idolized and condemned for simultaneously displaying and playing with blatant displays of female sexuality.
