MISS BLUEBELL IS STILL GETTING HER KICKS

Someone who calls herself “Miss Bluebell” sounds like a pale, languid maiden aunt from the deep South who carries smelling salts for her vapors--not a slim, chic, vigorous septuagenarian who presides over her global dance dynasty.

But the real Miss Bluebell (nee Margaret Kelly, nicknamed by a childhood doctor for her blue eyes) has no time for the vapors. She’s too busy pursuing her career as the founder and quality-control specialist for the Bluebell Girls, the archetypical, statuesque, high-kicking nightclub show dancers known for an eclectic, fresh, young, crowd-pleasing style.

Bluebell’s long career in show dancing, which took her from the prewar Art Deco elegance of the Folies Bergere to the post-war gaudy opulence of Paris and Las Vegas extravaganzas--interrupted by internment during the World War II German occupation of France--is the subject of a BBC eight-part musical miniseries to be aired locally on the Arts & Entertainment Network beginning Monday.

Passing through Los Angeles recently to check out “her” girls in their long-running Las Vegas and Reno revues, she’s now back home in Paris to supervise the Lido Bluebell Girls and the touring Bluebell shows. Bluebell was a consultant on the BBC miniseries and says her only worry was that audiences would think it fictionalized “when the reality was even more dramatic. My life was really more dramatic than what is shown,” she declares.

Nightclub dance has been her life since she was 14, and the shrewd, determined youngster who shared stages with such legends as Sophie Tucker, Mistinguett, Maurice Chevalier and Josephine Baker is now a shrewd businesswoman who oversees every detail of her show business empire.

Adopted into a poor Irish family, Bluebell was a small, sickly child who began ballet lessons at 6 to strengthen her weak legs and recalls that early dance training as “very vigorous. In those days you had better work hard or you were put out of the class. If you were not properly turned out, you got a smack on the legs with a cane. If I were to teach my girls today the way I was taught, I’d probably be taken to court.”

The young Bluebell was a talented dancer, and at 18, after years of performing and touring throughout Europe with various acts as a dancer/dance captain she had her first taste of the legendary Folies Bergere in Paris, with its lavish Erte costumes and scenery. By now a sturdy, seasoned trouper, self-confident and authoritative, she was invited to form her own group of dancers for a new Folies show.

In 1932, the first Bluebell Girls appeared on stage and a unique style of show dancing was created. Bluebell knew exactly what look she wanted for her dancers, a look that has not changed in 44 years.

“I wanted them tall (averaging 5 feet 11), with long necks to show off the costumes with their big feathers, cloaks and trains. I wanted long legs because they show up better and I wanted the girls to look as though they were enjoying themselves. The ballet training is essential because it produces good posture and an elegant look. I’ve made my reputation on elegance and class.”

About the current era of heightened feminist awareness Bluebell says: “Everyone knows our shows are tasteful and wholesome, and no one complains about exploitation. My girls ask to dance topless, it’s their choice.”

But why use ballet dancers to stand and pose in fancy costumes? “The traditional showgirls who just pose have completely gone out, nobody uses them anymore,” she replies. “All my dancers are well-trained, they dance all the time they’re on stage.”

Since 1932, there have been about 14,000 Bluebell Girls, recruited from all over the world, their ages usually ranging from 16 to 26, and many of them have come from prestigious ballet schools.

Former Bluebell Carole Bryan, now a model, remembers Bluebell as “very strict, with a lot of silly rules. We were picked for our looks and style, as well as our dancing ability, and we had to keep to that standard. But Miss Bluebell had the knack of getting a line together and making a success of the chic, clean look.”

World War II put a temporary end to extravagant nightclub shows in Paris, and Bluebell, by then a wife and mother, spent much of her energy coping with the German authorities. She was interned for a time and her musician husband, a Romanian Jew who was sent to a concentration camp, escaped to spend the rest of the war hidden in a small Paris apartment.

At war’s end, the entertainment business began to boom again and Bluebell was once more busy recruiting and training new Bluebells. In 1948 she began a professional association which has lasted to this day--with the Lido nightclub and with Donn Arden, Las Vegas producer/director hired by the Lido to bring his showman’s touch to Paris.

Integrating her Bluebell Girls into his large-scale ideas, they devised a formula for a series of sumptuous nightclub shows that have been popular for years at the Lido, on world tours and in Las Vegas and Reno.

The Arden shows take two years to plan and execute and now cost upwards of $8 million. Arden employs three choreographers and it is Bluebell’s job to furnish and maintain the company and to oversee rehearsals. Arden says, “We’ve worked well together for a long time and it’s because of us that the shows have been successful and are still going on.”

From her perspective of a lifetime in show business, Bluebell looks back to the beginning and observes that her kind of dance hasn’t really changed, although the early days of precision kick lines have given way to more sophisticated and complex dance routines.

“Young people are taller now,” she says, “so we have more tall dancers available to us. But my dancers, if they’re from classical dance schools, are as well trained and disciplined as ever. The audiences still appreciate the big, spectacular shows, and the shows themselves are the same, only there’s more money spent.”

Arden adds, rather ruefully: “The whole entertainment picture is changing, though, and price has a lot to do with it--they keep our shows running much longer now to amortize costs. There just aren’t many big, elaborate shows anymore. An era is nearly gone and we’re the last of it.”