Jane Avril

She was the cancan soloist and the only one with the right to wear coloured petticoats, but behind her apparent exuberance, which would earn her the nickname of ‘Crazy Jane’, or ‘Melinite’ (an explosive), Jane Avril was a refined woman about whom it was said that ‘she was a schoolmistress who had fallen in with a rowdy crowd’.
Jane Avril was the toughest rival of La Goulue, with whom she constantly vied for the status of star!