Tanguay, Eva

Tanguay, Eva (1878–1947), singer. The highest‐paid performer in the heyday of vaudeville, she was known as the “I Don't Care Girl,” after her most famous song. Born in Marbleton, Quebec, Canada, she appeared in stock and in Broadway plays before turning to two‐a‐day in the early 1900s. She was a hoydenish, frizzy‐haired blonde, celebrated for her animated delivery and her outlandish, often wildly feathered costumes. Although Percy Hammond once compared her brassy singing to “the wail of the prehistoric diplodocus,” her public clamored for more. Tanguay's popularity was such that E. F. Albee and B. F. Keith were rarely able to restrain her from singing risqué songs that other stars could not get away with. Her numbers had such titles as “It's Been Done Before but Never the Way I Do It,” “Go as Far as You Like,” and “I Want Somebody to Go Wild with Me.” When vaudeville died in the 1930s she retired and lived a virtual recluse, all but blind by the time she died in obscurity.