May Belfort was an Irish cabaret singer who took European and American music halls by storm in the late 1890s. Even though she died almost 100 years ago, there are still some tangible reminders of her in popular culture today, including paintings and drawings by Toulouse-Lautrec.
Details of Belfort's early life are a little opaque. One source claims that she was born May or Maisie Egan in Co Mayo in around 1872 or 1873. Another gives her place of birth as Dún Laoghaire. At any rate, it is clear that she was born somewhere in Ireland in the early 1870s.
She was educated by nuns at a convent in Ireland and later at a convent in France. When she appeared on stage in London in 1889 in an adaptation of the best-selling Victorian novel East Lynne, the Stage newspaper described her as a "young lady of good appearance and little experience". It went on to say that she showed "decided promise", which was more than a little prophetic.
Belfort became a versatile internationally known performer who could dance a Scottish jig, sing in English and French, and act in plays and pantomimes. One of the most popular songs she performed was Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow Wow. It is a comic song filled with double entendres. She must have been a sight to behold performing it in her idiosyncratic style with child-like voice and Irish lilt.
Belfort was immortalised in oil paintings and lithographs by the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. He made advertising posters for some of the night clubs and cabarets that dotted the area around Montmartre, including the Moulin Rouge and also painted several of the performers.
His 1895 poster to advertise the Petit Casino venue shows Belfort wearing an oversized child's bonnet, large red child's dress and clutching a black cat, a staple of her act. It is a striking piece of work. The following year, it won a prize at the International Poster Exhibition held in Reims. One of his colourful 1895 oil paintings of Belfort performing on stage at the Café des Décadents sold at auction in 1982 for £430,000.
Apart from performances in London and Paris, Belfort also performed in Johannesburg, Dublin, New York and St Petersburg. Following appearances in several cities in the south of England in March 1898, she was described by one journalist as "charming and clever" and "an artist to the tips of her fingers".
Much like the stars of today, Belfort's love life was reported on in great detail by the press. In her case, there was plenty to write about. Belfort had an affair with the English dancer May Milton, who performed at the Moulin Rouge. Milton was also the subject of some of Toulouse-Lautrec's artistic creations.
In December 1903, the Irish press reported that Belfort was engaged to Gen Benjamin “Ben” Viljoen, who was famous for his exploits in the Boer Wars. “One of the bravest and most popular of our late opponents”, is how The Irish Times described him at the time of the engagement.
Belfort was frequently referred to as English or British (or even the “French and English comedienne”) in the international press. Her engagement to Viljoen was front-page news in America, which spoke of the “alliance between Boer and Briton”, as if the romance could heal the rift which developed from the Boer Wars when thousands were killed and injured.
Viljoen undertook to divorce his wife and marry Belfort, but did not follow through on his promise. As punishment, Belfort horsewhipped him on the steps of the Coliseum concert hall in Chicago in January 1905. "I came from England to horsewhip you. Take that! And that! And that!", she cried to an astonished Viljoen, as she carried out her retribution in broad daylight in front of a crowd of stunned onlookers.
“He has slighted me and broken his promise to marry me”, Belfort said when justifying her actions. Viljoen dismissed her accusations, saying that she was simply seeking publicity in America to further her stage career there. “I owe her nothing and am not going to marry her”, Viljoen said defiantly.
Belfort seems to have remained in America and that is where she met her sad end. In April 1929, one Irish newspaper carried a brief account of her passing. “Miss May Belfort, a once famous actress, died in poverty in California”, it read. She died in Santa Barbara in late March 1929 after what was described as a “lingering illness”.
Interestingly, at the time of her death, the American press referred to her as "May Mudge". It is not clear if she married a man named Mudge or if that was another nom de plume dreamt up to further her career. An air of mystery surrounded May Egan right up to the end.