Ève Lavallière (French pronunciation: [ɛv lavaljɛʁ]; 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

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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

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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

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References

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  • (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
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