Individual Details

Marriage

Boston Daily Globe, March 17, 1947
Fifi D'Orsay Weds
Beverly Hills, Calif., March 16 -Film acress Fifi D'Orsay, 36, and actor Peter LaRicos, 33, were married today by Justice of the Peace Cecil Holland in his Beverly Hills home. Actor Tom Drake and singer June Hutton were the witnesses.

Burial

FIndAGrave
Fifi D'Orsay 
ORIGINAL NAME Marie-Rose Angelina Yvonne Lussier
BIRTH 16 Apr 1904Montreal, Montreal Region, Quebec, Canada
DEATH 2 Dec 1983 (aged 79)Woodland Hills, Los Angeles County, California, USA
BURIAL Forest Lawn Memorial ParkGlendale, Los Angeles County, California, USA  Show Map
PLOT Whispering Pines section, Map #03, Lot 475, Single Ground Interment Space 4 Cremated w/ ashes buried
MEMORIAL ID 11556

Death

California Death Index, 1940-1997
Name: Fifi Dorsay
Sex: Female
Death Date: 02 Dec 1983
Death Place: Los Angeles, California, United States
Death Place (Original): LOS ANGELES
Mother's Name: Peautre
Birth Date: 16 Apr 1904
Birthplace: Canada

"California Death Index, 1940-1997," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VGGR-BYT : 26 November 2014), Fifi Dorsay, 02 Dec 1983; Department of Public Health Services, Sacramento.

***

United States Social Security Death Index
Name: Fifi Dorsay
State: California
Residence Place: California
Last Place of Residence: Los Angeles, California
Previous Residence Postal Code: 90028
Age: 79
Birth Date: 16 Apr 1904
Death Date: Dec 1983
Source: FamilySearch, accessed August 26, 2021

News article

Wikipedia article: Fifi D'orsay
Fifi D'Orsay was born Yvonne Lussier in Montreal, Canada,[3] to a father who was a postal clerk. The couple had a large family, with Fifi having 11 siblings. She was educated at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Montreal before graduating and finding work as a secretary.
As a young stenographer, she wished to become an actress, and moved to New York City.[4] Once there she found work with the Greenwich Village Follies,[3] after an audition in which she sang "Yes! We Have No Bananas" in French. When asked where she was from, she told the director she was from Paris, France, and that she had worked in the Folies Bergère. The impressed director hired her, billing her as "Mademoiselle Fifi".
While working in the Follies, she became involved with Ed Gallagher, a veteran actor who was half of the successful Broadway comedy team of Gallagher and Shean. Gallagher and D'Orsay put together a vaudeville act, and he coached her in the art of show business. After touring in vaudeville, she headed to Hollywood and adopted the surname "D'Orsay" (after a favorite perfume (fr). Soon after she began working in films, often cast as the "naughty French girl" from "gay Paris".
She became a U.S. citizen in 1936, just as her career as a film star came to a sharp halt when she walked out on her contract at Fox Studios and was blacklisted.[5]
While never becoming a major top-billing name, she found steady work - appearing with such stalwarts as Bing Crosby and Buster Crabbe. For years she worked in both film and vaudeville; pacing her appearances in film with continued performances in vaudeville. When age put an end to the glamour roles, she took jobs in television; including 2 appearances each on ABC's Adventures in Paradise (as a mother superior in the episode "Castaways"), and the CBS legal drama Perry Mason (in the episode "The Case of the Grumbling Grandfather" and in the episode “The Case of the Bountiful Beauty”)- as well appearing in the CBS sitcom Pete and Gladys. She was a contestant on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life (Feb. 23, 1956), and at the age of sixty-seven she bookended her career with a return to the Broadway stage in the Tony Award-winning musical, Follies.
D'Orsay married twice. Her first husband was Earl Hill (also billed as "Maury Hill" & "Morgan Hill"), the son of a Chicago manufacturer. She divorced Hill in 1939 and married Peter LaRicos in 1947, a restaurateur and agent.[5]
D'Orsay died from cancer at the age of seventy-nine on December 2, 1983, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.[2] She was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

D'Orsay was credited as the girl who made the phrase "Ooh La La" widely known.[6]
Partial filmography[edit]
Those Three French Girls (1930)
They Had to See Paris (1929) - Fifi
Hot for Paris (1929) - Fifi Dupre
On the Level (1930) - Miimi
Women Everywhere (1930) - Lili La Fleur
Those Three French Girls (1930) - Charmaine
Mr. Lemon of Orange (1931) - Julie La Rue
The Stolen Jools (1931, Short) - Fifi D'Orsay
Women of All Nations (1931) - Fifi (uncredited)
Young as You Feel (1931) - Fleurette
The Girl from Calgary (1932) - Fifi Follette
They Just Had to Get Married (1932) - Marie
The Life of Jimmy Dolan (1933) - Budgie
Going Hollywood (1933) - Lili Yvonne
Wonder Bar (1934) - Mitzi
The Merry Widow (1934) - Marcelle
Three Legionnaires (1937) - Olga
Submarine Base (1943) - Maria Styx
Nabonga (1944) - Marie
Delinquent Daughters (1944) - Mimi
Dixie Jamboree (1945) - Yvette
The Gangster (1947) - Mrs. Ostroleng
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) - French Prisoner (uncredited)
Wild and Wonderful (1964) - Simone
What a Way to Go! (1964) - Baroness
The Art of Love (1965) - Fanny
Assignment to Kill (1968) - Mrs. Hennie

References

^ "Fifi D'Orsay, Hollwood's 'French Bombshell' of the 1930s --..." UPI.
^ Jump up to:a b United Press International (December 4, 1983). "Fifi d'Orsay, Movie Actress; Played French Flirts in 30's". The New York Times. Retrieved December 23, 2013. Fifi d'Orsay, the French Bombshell of 1930's motion pictures who was never able to visit France, has died at the age of 79. Miss d'Orsay was ill with cancer for several months before her death Friday at the Motion Picture and Television Country Hospital in suburban Woodland Hills.
^ Jump up to:a b "Fifi d'Orsay, Movie Actress; Played French Flirts in 30's". The New York Times. United Press International. December 4, 1983. p. A 52. Retrieved May 20, 2021.
^ "Young Star's Rapid Rise". The New York Times. October 5, 1930. p. X 3. Retrieved May 20, 2021.
^ Jump up to:a b Ralph Lucas. "Fifi D'Orsay – Biography". Northern Stars. Ralph Lucas, NortherStars.ca. Retrieved August 25, 2019.
^ UPI (December 3, 1983). "Fifi D'Orsay, Hollwood's 'French Bombshell' of the 1930s --..." upi.com. UPI. Retrieved August 25, 2019. It was written of her years ago that "Ooh-la-la" went into our vocabulary more by Fifi's doing than anybody else's.

Obituary

Biography/Obituary on FindAGrave

Actress. Fifi D'Orsay received notoriety as a Canadian-born actress starting her fifty-year career in the American silent movie era and ending it in an award-winning Broadway musical. She became the “French Bombshell” that was not French. Although she was French Canadian, she easily played the role of the charming Parisian flirt with her beauty and French accent. At the age of twenty, Marie-Rose Angelina Yvonne Lussier joined with a friend in New York City in hopes of finding an acting career. She had left her large Roman Catholic family with ten siblings behind in hopes of doing better than a part-time secretarial position. By telling a director that she had been a Follies Bergere showgirl in Paris, she landed a position with The Greenwich Village Follies singing “Yes! We Have No Bananas,” and was renamed “Mademoiselle Fifi.” Later, she took the surname of “D'Orsay,” after a perfume. During her successful run on the Vaudeville circuit, she had two partners in her comedy acts, Edward Gallagher and Herman Berrans. Leaving Vaudeville, she went to Hollywood after a favorable screen test. She was finding roles playing the naughty French girl wearing a laced negligee and showing her beautiful, long legs in pre-code movies. Starring Will Rogers , she appeared as “Fifi” in the pre-code 1929 movie, “They Had to See Paris.” In 1930 she had her first top billing in the early “talkie” film, “Those Three French Girls” produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1931 she had the lead female role of Fleurette play ing opposite Will Rogers, in the Fox Production's “You're as Young as you Feel.” Although the majority of her films were comedies, she often sang solos. A newspaper article dated January 26, 1931 in the “San Francisco Call-Bulletin” stated by missing the ship's disbarment call at 9 PM for all visitors, she took an unexpected ocean voyage. Since she was in the middle of filming a movie, she sent a radio message ship-to-shore to the studio director that she would be late for work and the next port would be in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1932 after a disagreement with Fox Studios, she walked out without finishing her contract. She admitted that was the worst professional mistake of her life as she had difficulty finding film roles after that incident. She continued to have steady employment by alternating her assignments between the better-paying Vaudeville acts and film parts. In 1934 Warner Brother's Pictures money-making hit “”Wonder Bar” starring a black-faced Al Jolson, she played the supporting role of Mitzi. From 1933 to 1937, she made only seven films causing her fan mail to drop from thousands of letters a week to hundreds. In 1936 she became a United States citizen. During World War II, she performed for American troops in 1941 on the Pacific islands, which credited her with newly-found notoriety. In 1944 she had the role of Mimi in the B movie, “Delinquent Daughter.” At the age of 47, she had the role of playing a twenty-year-old in the “Gangsters.” In 1950 when the Palace Theatre revived vaudeville, she returned with her act. Knowing that she had never been to Paris, France, she was given in 1951 around-trip airplane ticket for the trip by Ralph Edwards on “This is Your Life.” She returned the ticket for cash, thus never seeing Paris. She was a contestant in the February 23, 1956 episode of Groucho Marx's television program, “ You Bet Your Life .” As an aging actress, she took roles in television such as “Adventures in Paradise” in 1959; “Perry Mason” in episodes "The Case of the Grumbling Grandfather,” Season 4 in 1961 and “ The Case of the Bountiful Beauty,” Season 7 in 1964; “Bonanza” in 1963, and “Bewitched” in 1964. She made numerous appearances on television talk shows such as the “Tonight Show” with Jack Parr and later with Johnny Carson, the Merv Griffin Show, and The Mike Douglas Show. In 1964 actor Dean Martin offered her a small role as a French baroness in “What A Way to Go,” which followed the next year with a small role in “Wild and Wonderful” with Tony Curtis and later “The Art of Love” with Dick Van Dyke. One source stated that she made 23 films. At the age of 67, she had the part of a former Follies headliner, “Solange LaFitte” in a Broadway musical, the “Follies,” which was a mimic of her own professional story. Containing her strong version of “Ah, Paris,” the cast album became a success. The musical opened April 4, 1971, had 522 successful performances, received eleven Tony Award nominations with seven awarded, given the New York Drama Critic's Award for Best Musical and closed July 1, 1972. She married twice, first to Maurice E. Hill on December 7, 1933 and then Peter La Ricos on March 26, 1947, and even though against her Roman Catholic faith, divorced each after about five years. She admitted that she made thousands upon thousands of dollars, did not save any, and spent at least one hundred dollars more than she made. After being diagnosed with cancer, she resided in the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, where she died. A twenty-page biography can be found in the book “Once Upon a Time in Paradise: Canadian-born in the Golden Age of Hollywood” by Charles Foster, which was published in 2003.