The Shutterbug and the Underworld Empress

The entirely New York phenomenon that was Weegee was born on this day in 1899.  Just to be clear, this is not he.

Peacock en pointe

A typically evocative - if uncharacteristically glamourous - snap by the one and only Weegee.

What at first seems an almost risible Vaudeville actually - as with so many improbably lovely things - has a back story strange and rather sad. You can read more here about the picture, and the dancer, a onetime star of the Ballets Russe called Marina Franca, née Wilhelmina Roothooft, sometimes known as Marina Lord. She ended her life Marina Salz, the widow of a prominent art dealer.

Weegee captured her about halfway through her transformation from ballet girl to society lady, on stage between pictures at the Radio City Music Hall. Apparently the tail was motorized, which only makes the whole thing all the more fabulous, no?