Margaret Kelly
Showgirl who created the Bluebell Girls
Her company premiered in 1932 with Kelly's innovative stage style. Dancers were 5 feet 10 inches or taller, and their sumptuous costumes consisted mainly of feathers and headdresses. In later years, the feathers were often wired for light bulbs.
Known for her strictness with her dancers and a perfectionist, she set the standard for the showgirl look, still the standard today.
When topless dancing lost some of its shock value, Kelly allowed it at the request of the Bluebell Girls.
Dublin native was abandoned by her parents as an infant and raised by a nurse who took her to live in Liverpool. When Kelly was 6, a doctor suggested she take ballet lessons to strengthen her legs and nicknamed her Bluebell because of her bright eyes. By the age of 14, she was a professional dancer. At 19, she made her debut at the Folies Bergere as a summer replacement in the chorus line.
World War II put an end to large nightclub shows in Paris. She spent the war years fending off Nazis (she had married Marcel Leibovici, a Romanian-born pianist who was half-Jewish) and was briefly imprisoned in southern France until the Irish ambassador convinced the Germans that she was a native of Ireland, a neutral country. (Leibovici was sent to a concentration camp but escaped, and Kelly hid him in a Paris apartment.)
After the war, Kelly put most of her energy into managing her growing assortment of Bluebell dance troupes as well as her Kelly Boy dancers. It's estimated she trained about 15,000 dancers over the years. She retired at 79.
The couple had four children, three of whom survive. Kelly's husband died in an auto accident in 1961.
