Dublin-born Margaret Kelly, known as "Miss Bluebell", who founded the world famous troupe of dancers, the Bluebell Girls, in Paris has died aged 94.
The statuesque Bluebell Girls, who still appear at the Lido club on the Champs Elysées and at other venues all over the world, are well known for their spangled headgear, peacock tails and for being scantily clad.
The girls had to be over 5 feet 8 inches but averaged 5 feet 11 inches, had to have classical ballet training and be long-legged and beautiful.
Miss Bluebell, a classically trained dancer, was known for how good she was to her girls but she was also strict with them and they had to behave both on and off the stage.
Margaret Kelly was born to an unmarried mother in the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin. On her birth certificate, her father's name was Kelly. She was adopted by a foster family called Murphy who took her to Liverpool with them when she was four. She was convent educated and brought up by an unmarried aunt of the family. She said she had a happy childhood.
A sickly child, the family doctor said her large blue eyes looked like bluebells and the name "Bluebell" stuck.
She took ballet classes from the age of six and made her first stage appearance at the age of 12 in panto in Newquay in Babes in the Wood.
At 16 she went to Germany to dance with the Alfred Jackson dancers. She danced at the Scarlet Theatre in Berlin and in those days the dancers were strictly chaperoned.
She was invited to join the famous Folies Bergere on a visit to Paris and became a featured dancer there. When Jackson retired she was asked to form her own troupe, so she gathered her old ballet friends and formed a troupe of 11 girls. In 1932, she assembled and trained the first Bluebell girls at the Folies Bergere.
Ms Kelly married a composer and conductor called Marcel Libovitz. He was Jewish and they were caught during the Nazi Occupation and put in different concentration camps. He escaped to join the Resistance and she was eventually allowed to leave France after the Irish Ambassador interceded on her behalf.
When the war ended she went back to France where she stayed and became a naturalised French citizen in 1948. She had four children.
Ms Kelly returned to Ireland in 1980 when she brought the girls to the Gaiety. At the time, in an interview in The Irish Times, she said: "I always felt Irish and always called myself an Irishwoman and always wanted to come back here."
When she retired in 1987, she had trained over 10,000 girls for what had become one of the most famous dance groups in the world. In 1984, she received the Parisienne "Crimson Medal" to mark the 2,100th performance of the troupe's show at the Lido and in recognition of the many charity shows that her troupe staged.