Yvonne Printemps (; born Yvonne Wigniolle; 25 July 1894 – 19 January 1977) was a French singer and actress who achieved stardom on stage and screen in France and internationally.
Printemps went on the stage in Paris at the age of 12, and at 21 she was singled out by the actor, director and playwright Sacha Guitry as a leading lady. In 1919 they were married, and worked closely together until 1932, when they divorced. Printemps never remarried, but had a personal and professional partnership with the actor Pierre Fresnay which lasted until his death in 1975.
As a performer, Printemps was famed for the quality of her singing voice and for her personal charm. Among those who composed for her were André Messager, Reynaldo Hahn, Noël Coward and Francis Poulenc. Her voice could have led her to an operatic career, but guided by Guitry she concentrated on operette and other types of musical show, along with non-musical plays and films. In addition to her many successes in Paris she appeared to great acclaim in the West End of London, and on Broadway in New York.
Biography
Early years
Printemps was born in Ermont, a northern suburb of Paris, as Yvonne Wigniolle. Despite the misgivings of what she later described as "my highly bourgeois family", she made her debut as a performer at the age of 12 in a revue at La Cigale in Paris. The music critic J. B. Steane writes of her, "A career at the Opéra-Comique seemed possible, for she had a voice of delightful quality with prodigious breath control."
The possibility of an operatic career did not materialise. Printemps was dancing at the Folies Bergère at the age of 13. She was given the sobriquet Printemps (springtime) by her fellow chorus members because of her sunny disposition, and adopted it as her stage name. She appeared in small roles in light musical shows such as Les Contes de Perrault (1913). Louis Verneuil saw her in one of them while he was writing a revue, 1915, and insisted on casting her in the leading part in it. In the revue she performed a parody of the actor-playwright Sacha Guitry, "whose mannerisms she imitated with spry irreverence." Guitry's wife, Charlotte, saw the show, was greatly amused and soon afterwards brought her husband to see it.
With Sacha Guitry
In November 1915 Guitry cast Printemps in his new revue, which he directed but did not appear in. A year later they acted together in his new comedy, Jean de la Fontaine. It was rumoured that Printemps was having an affair with Guitry's father, the eminent actor Lucien Guitry; whatever the truth of that rumour, it is undisputed that she became romantically involved with Sacha. Charlotte Guitry, discovering the liaison, left her husband; they divorced in 1918 and in April 1919 he married Printemps.
Guitry wrote many plays for her, some musical and others straight comedies. Both he and his father appeared with her in several of them, including Mon Père avait raison and Comment on ecrit l'histoire. They played together not only in Paris, but in the West End of London. All three appeared at the Aldwych Theatre in a four-week season in 1920. Sir John Gielgud wrote that Printemps and her husband "returned … many times to delight London in various pieces artfully contrived by him to show them both off to the best possible advantage." He described her thus: