Eva Tanguay - Family

Family

Eva Tanguay married twice, although was incorrectly reported to have been married three times. In 1908, Eva publicly became engaged to the extremely popular cross-dressing performer Julian Eltinge. Eva dressed in traditional male formal attire and Eltinge played the blushing bride. Although a ring was exchanged, they never wed. She divorced her first husband, a dancer named Tom Ford, in 1917 after four very rocky years of marriage. Following her divorce from Ford, Eva became romantically linked (though never married, as was sometimes reported) to a vaudeville dancer named Roscoe Ails. She broke things off after Ails' behavior became increasingly erratic and violent. In 1927, when she was 49, Tanguay married her piano accompanist, 23 year old Al Parado. Shortly after the marriage she had it annulled on the grounds of fraud. Tanguay claimed that he had at least two other names which he used so frequently that she was not sure which one was real. In truth, she had wed Parado as a publicity ploy; when it did not pan out as she had hoped, she had the union dissolved.

Outside of marriage, Eva is said to have had an affair with famed African American comedian George Walker, husband of equally famous and talented musical comedy star Ada Overton Walker, and stage partner of Bert Williams. The affair is alluded to in the book Elegy in Manhattan by vaudevillian and movie producer George Jessel.