Double Your D’Arvilles

Born this day, stage star Camille D’Arville, (Cornelia Dysktra, 1863-1932), also rendered Darville, d’Arville, and D’arville.

Originally from the Netherlands. D’Arville trained in Amsterdam and Vienna before making a name for herself in musical comedies at the Gaiety Theatre in London. During this period she married a professional acrobat named Andrew Wilson Lyons. In 1888, she moved to the U.S., where she performed in musicals, light operetta, and vaudeville. Some of her shows included The Queen’s Mate (1888) with Lillian Russell,Venus (1893) with Trixie Friganza, and Oscar Hammerstein I’sSanta Maria (1896, as the title character). For a number of years she was a member of the opera company The Bostonians. She also managed her own troupe The D’Arville Light Opera Company for a time.

An 1899 issue of a Chicago publication called The Musical Critic reports that she’d gone over to vaudeville: “According to Camille D’Arville, a $I,630 a week position in vaudeville is to be preferred to a place on the more exalted comic-opera stage, where the reward for service is likely to be only the glittering and bubble-like promises of the manager. And it was with such a parting shot into the camp of the regulars that the handsome singer, who has been famous since the days of the old Bostonians, calmly enrolled herself among the vaudeville artists with the intention of remaining with them. Her reason for doing so is evidently entirely satisfactory to herself and perfectly logical to others. The salary paid to her far exceeds that given to any one else outside the limits of grand opera, and even overbalances the salary of President McKinley“.

Notwithstanding, D’Arville did return to the legit stage, in shows like The Belle of London Town (1907) with Kathleen Clifford. Having married her second husband, a businessman, she retired in 1908 and moved to San Francisco where she kept a hand in as President of the San Francisco Light Opera Company, and patron and advisor to the Reginald Travers Company.

Colette D’Arville (1902-1944) was not related to Camille, though one suspects she was so named in order to create that very impression on American audiences. She had been born Marie Cescosse in French Basque Country, then studied singing in Paris where she went by the professional name of Colette Etchery. From 1922 to 1927 she was a soprano and comedienne with the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens. In 1928 she was booked for the Keith-Albee-Orpheum vaudeville circuit, and this was when she changed her name to D’Arville.

For the remainder of her life, Colette D’Arville divided her time between the U.S. and Paris. In this country she appeared in the Broadway musical Here’s Howe (1928) with Ben Bernie, Eric Blore,William Frawley, Alan Hale,Fuzzy Knight, Beryl Wallace, and Allen Kearns (who played the title role). She sang on American radio, gave concerts at venues like Town Hall, and starred in one film for Paramount, Tango Bar (1935). She was involved, both artistically and romantically, with tenor Giovanni Martinelli and conductor/composer/radio personality Deems Taylor.

D’Arville also returned to Paris regularly to take roles with the Opéra-Comique. She happened to be there in 1940 when the Nazis invaded, but she managed to escape and maker way back to the States. During the war, she performed with the U.S.O. and at the Stage Door Canteen. She was only 42 years of age, when she died in late 1944.

For more on vaudeville history, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous.