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Born Vander Clyde Broadway on December 19, 1899 in Round Rock, Texas, "Barbette"
was an American female impersonator, high wire performer and trapeze artist who attained
great popularity throughout the United States, but whose greatest fame came from
Europe and especially Paris, in the 1920's and 30's.
Going to the circus with his mother at an early age in Austin, he was fascinated by the wire act. Wanting desperately to join the circus, "Barbette" practiced for hours by walking along his mother's clothes line.
After high school, which he graduated from at age 14, "Barbette" began his circus career as one-half of the aerialist team The Alfaretta Sisters. One of the sisters died unexpectedly and "Barbette" answered the surviving sister's ad for a replacement, auditioning in San Antonio. Together the pair decided that it was more dramatic for a woman to perform the acrobatic stunts, because women's clothes always made the highwire act more impressive. So, as you may have already guessed, "Barbette" started dressing like a girl for the act and the rest, as they say, is history.
Following his time as an "Alfaretta Sister", "Barbette" next joined an act called
"Erford's Whirling Sensation". The act included three people who hung from a spinning
apparatus by their teeth. He then honed his solo act and moved to the vaudeville
stage, taking the
name "Barbette," because he thought it was exotic and French sounding,
and could easily be either a first or a last name.
In 1919 he debuted his solo act at the Harlem Opera House. He performed trapeze and wire stunts in full drag, maintaining the illusion until the end of the act, when he would pull off his wig and strike exaggerated masculine poses. For the next several years, he toured the Keith vaudeville circuit, billed simply, as a "versatile specialty."
His European debut came in 1923, having been sent by the William Morris Agency to England and then to Paris. He appeared in such venues as the "Casino de Paris", the "Moulin Rouge", the "Empire", the "Médrano Circus", the "Alhambra Theater" and the "Folies Bergere".
Returning to America in 1924, "Barbette" appeared for four months in "The Passing Show of 1924. During this time he became a featured attraction with the "Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus", touring London, Brussels and Berlin. It was during an engagement at the London Palladium that Barbette was found engaged in sexual activity with another man, thusly his contract was cancelled and he was never able to acquire a work permit for England again.
Barbette continued to perform until the mid- to late 1930s. Unknown for sure, most
sources report the year as 1938, some report the date at 1936 and one as late as
1942. The end of Barbette's performing career is attributed to a number of causes,
including a fall, pneumonia, polio or some combination of the three. Whatever the
case may be, Barbette was left in extreme pain needed a combination of surgery and
extensive rehabilitation to allow him to walk again.
He became the artistic director and aerialist trainer for a number of circuses, including
Ringling Bros., and Shrine Circus, so far as to be given credit for "reinventing
the aerial ballet". "Barbette" specialized in choreographing troupes of female aerialists
who performed under such names as "The Bird Cage Girls", "The Swing High Girls",
"The Whirl Girls" and the "Cloud Swing Girls". Barbette served as a consultant on
a number of films, including the circus sequences for "Till the Clouds Roll By" in
1946 "The Big Circus" in 1959, and was hired to coach Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis
for their "gender-bending" roles in the film "Some Like It Hot" also in 1959. In
1969, "Barbette" created, and toured with the aerial ballet for Disney on Parade
in Australia through 1972.
Living in Round Rock or Austin, Texas (and often in severe physical pain) with his sister Mary Cahill, Vander Clyde Broadway, known forever as "Barbette", committed suicide by overdose on August 5, 1973, was cremated and his ashes were buried in Round Rock Cemetery.
