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Margaret Kelly Collection on the Bluebell Girls (MS-00604)

Abstract

The Margaret Kelly Collection on the Bluebell Girls (1935-1997) includes personal scrapbooks created by Margaret Kelly, programs from international shows featuring the Bluebell Girls dance troupe, and photographs of the Bluebell Girls. The scrapbooks include newspaper clippings covering Kelly's work at the Folies-Bergère and Lido de Paris, Paris, France, and her long career as creator and manager of the world famous Bluebell Girls. Also included are materials from 1958 about the Bluebell Girls shows in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Finding Aid PDF

Date

1935 to 1997

Extent

9.37 Cubic Feet (2 boxes and 21 oversized boxes)
22.94 Linear Feet

Related People/Corporations

Scope and Contents Note

The Margaret Kelly Collection on the Bluebell Girls (1935-1997) includes personal scrapbooks created by Margaret Kelly, programs from international shows featuring the Bluebell Girls dance troupe, and photographs of the Bluebell Girls. The scrapbooks include newspaper clippings covering Kelly's work at the Folies-Bergère and Lido de Paris, Paris, France, and her long career as creator and manager of the world famous Bluebell Girls. Included are materials from 1958 about the Bluebell Girls shows in Las Vegas, Nevada. The collection also includes newspaper clippings, brochures, and numerous programs from the Lido de Paris, Folies-Bergère and other international production shows for which Kelly provided dancers.

Access Note

Collection is open for research.

Publication Rights

Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in three series:

Series I: Scrapbooks, 1935-1997;

Series II: International show programs, 1935-1994;

Series III. Photographs and publicity, 1949-1980s.

Biographical / Historical Note

Dancer Margaret "Miss Bluebell" Kelly was born in Dublin, Ireland on June 24, 1910. According to an oft-repeated anecdote, she received her nickname as a young girl from a doctor who was mesmerized by her clear blue eyes. In 1930, she began dancing in Paris for Folies-Bergère. By 1932, she created her own line of dancers called the Bluebell Girls while at the Folies-Bergère. She married Marcel Leibovici, a pianist and composer at the Folies-Bergère in 1939, and they had four children: Patrick, Francis, Florence and Jean-Paul. During World War II, Leibovici was imprisoned by the Germans during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Following his escape from a concentration camp, the couple went into hiding for almost two and a half years.

In 1947, Kelly began her life-long collaboration with the American choreographer and producer, Donn Arden, at the Lido de Paris. She was well-known for her high standards; to be a Bluebell Girl meant that one had passed a rigorous audition process. The Bluebell Girls went on to become a global organization by the end of the 1950s, and appeared in variations of the Lido de Paris all over the world. They first came to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1958 as part of the Lido de Paris show at the newly-opened Stardust Hotel. By 1974, the shows Hallelujah Hollywood and later Jubilee! at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas would take this troupe to the pinnacle of its fame. Margaret Kelly was awarded an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 1996, as well as the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for her 72 years of professional work in dancing. Kelly passed away in 2004, and is buried in Paris' Montmartre Cemetery.

Sources:

"Margaret Kelly." Guardian. Accessed January 23, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/sep/16/guardianobituaries.france

Goodwin, Joanne. "Margaret Kelly." Online Nevada Encyclopedia. Accessed January 23, 2019. http://www.onlinenevada.org/articles/margaret-kelly

Related Collections

The following resources may provide additional information related to the materials in this collection:

Donn Arden Papers, 1918-1994. MS-00425. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.

Donn Arden Photograph Collection, 1920s-1994. PH-00328. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Nevada, Nevada.

Paris, France Show Programs Collection, 1950-2000. MS-00641. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada..

Preferred Citation

Margaret Kelly Collection on the Bluebell Girls, 1935-1997. MS-00604. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.

Acquisition Note

Materials were purchased in 2013 from Chantal Bigot by Michelle Light (Director, Special Collections and Archives); accession numbers 2014-003 and 2014-051.

Processing Note

Material was minimally processed by Tom Sommer in 2014. In 2014, as part of a legacy finding aid conversion project, Kayla McDuffie and Dallas Reiber revised and enhanced the collection description and entered the data into ArchivesSpace. In 2019, as part of a backlog elimination project, Christina Lamoureux rehoused the collection and revised the description to bring it into compliance with current professional standards.

Resource Type

Collection

Collection Type

EAD ID

US::NvLN::MS00604

Finding Aid Description Rules

Describing Archives: A Content Standard
English