Are European Singers Sexier?

In the plush, svelte satin-lined cabaret world that is found in the nation’s better hostelries patronized by the upper brackets, a most pleasant institution has blossomed out in our generation known as the chanteuse, To the top- hatted gentry and even the hourglass-shaped dowagers who foot the tab at these swank rooms, the chanteuse is supposed to represent a bit of nostalgia from the old world, a chunk of the continent imported to our shores without benefit of ocean spray.But the gents who keep book in these hotel halls of revelry know better.

Saucy and provocative, Monique prefers shortie nightgowns whether in bed or posing for cheesecake photos. she will be seen in a coming film, "Martin & Lewis in Paris".

To them the word chanteuse can be spelled in three letters: s-e-x. For over the years they have learned that the young ladies from foreign shores who come to coo ballads to our hotel patrons symbolize a basic instinct that adds up to the lowest common denominator in mankind. They can see in the response to these canaries something far different than what happens when our own native brand of vocalist belts out a pop tune.

in television regularly, Monique plays roles of a temptress.She does not mind being type-cast in the role with or without clothes, once playing in a Tarzan films.

It is not necessarily that the foreign lassies are more attractive or prettier but rather that they know how to project a certain quality that adds up to that ethereal quality known as sex appeal. The chanteuse art as practiced on these shores by a succession of fils d’amour such as Edith Piaf, Patachou Genevieve, Jacqueline Francois adds up to 11 kind of perfume, oo-la-la sex. It is the difference between a boudoir and a bedroom. And well-heeled customers in the ultra-ultra spots across the nation love it as a welcome relief from the braying of the likes of Kay Starr and Theresa Brewer. This desire to enjoy the continental style of singing of unrequited love has brought a variety of imports across the waters, who are enjoying a full measure of prosperity on the night club circuits. A case in point is a busty Belgian named Monique Van Vooren, who is not particularly a 400 batter when it comes to voice but who can just ‘stand in a room and ooze sex.

In French movie, Monique was allowed a lot more of her talents than in Hollywood appearances. She paraded about in "Serie Noire" in bras and towel, got favourable notices for beauty. She appeared in three French movies.

Whether the customers ever hear what she sings is questionable but whatever it is that she has, the patrons from the Maisonette in New York to the Mocambo in Hollywood love it. And Monique knows it. She is absolutely crazy-as the hep set would say-but like a Belgian fox. Sitting in her Manhattan living’ room and cuddling Foudy, her white poodle ("He doesn’t have my bust measurements," she advises, "but then after all he’s only a dog"), wit and refined suggestiveness roll off her tongue without the slightest hint of having been rehearsed. Instead of meeting a gorgeous but dumb show girl who happened to be professionally lucky, one finds himself face to bust with a gorgeous but extremely intelligent and sensitive young lady.

Furs and satin are favourites of Monique, who had 15 minute show nights i New York interviewing stars.

 Monique’s star has never been so high as it is today and if she is able to commit herself to a third of the offers which have come to her since her sensational hit at the St. Regis Maisonette, there’s little doubt that she can become the hottest item in show business. She kids her own singing and dancing, but she knows how to acquit herself on a stage or at a mike. Her face is exquisite. Her 40-24-36 architecture is for real. She speaks English, French, Italian, Flemish and German, and can be funny and sexy in all of them.

Her answers to provocative questions are her own, not press agents’: "I love caviar by the spoonful (does that make me a red?) -but only black caviar, and only if it matches my satin bed sheets which must also be black. I can’t stand yellow diamonds, but I enjoy minks in all colours. I used to have the hobby of collecting diamonds, by the way. Kind people gave them to me. Usually very kind people. I called that hobby my Bundles For Belgium campaign.

Outdoor girl despite her boudoir tastes, Monique enjoys a pool in Las Vegas. She likes Vegas dates to enjoy swimming.

There’s certainly nothing elusive about the blonde Belgian beauty’s work at a mike. Her gowns are usually white and tight, the better to not only display a classically voluptuous body from the front but to display, when she gets fairly frisky and turns around, that the south of her is also a decided asset. She interrupts the melody now and then to give out an exciting growl, low and guttural. Her sense of humour is rich unborrowed. She is an accomplished artist with her double entendre songs.

Away from the microphone her zesty love for life is still as evident. She’s healthy and outreaching in her joie de vivre. While there’s a lot of comedy in her, she’s not a Martha Raye, for instance, as she quips, she seems to be bubbling over with all the physical aspects of youth; you can’t escape the feeling that she can be touched off easily, that her sexiness is every bit as genuine as her wit. Within her full schedule Monique finds time for dates, and has been escorted by the Marquis of Milford-Heven, Franchot Tone, Prince Christian of Hanover and Rex Harrison. Her ideas for good dates are fairly catholic, she likes theatre, dancing and dinner at Twenty-One, but on impulse will enjoy donning blue jeans and sweater (a sight no student of shapeliness should miss) and riding down to Eddie Condon’s the Village Vanguard, or the Bohemian to hear mountain-moving jazz. She’s definite in her pronouncements of what an eligible man should have: "Most importantly, he shouldn’t have debts. He doesn’t have to be dark or have bulging biceps, necessarily. But if he isn’t any kind of man to look at, he should at least be my kind of millions."

Decorating the swimming pool when playing night club engagements at Las Vegas Thunderbird Hotel Monique now just how to pose for poolside photos draped only in a towel. She recently played in "Kismet" and has starred i TV productions on Studio One.

Monique’s first break in show business came when the late John Murray Anderson, that astute showman, was casting pretty and well-developed girls for his Broadway production of "Almanac" a few seasons back. His attention was riveted to the tall doll from Brussels whose face seemed so flawless and whose figure seemed so impossibly perfect, that he talked with her for only three minutes and then signed her on the spot. It didn’t matter that, her singing voice (which she admitted to Anderson was "very small but very unpleasant") would never threaten the likes of Shore or Stafford, or that her acting talents wouldn’t ever challenge the Misses Hayes or Barry more, Monique was startlingly beautiful. Anderson watched her bring her ‘haughty grandeur across a stage and knew she had an immense future.

He was right. Now-blonde Monique, who until "Almanac" had necked with fame chiefly as the villainess in a Tarzan movie and as a TV foil to Abbott and Costello, is today the darling of newspaper columnists who can always count on candid and provocative quotes from her, and of stage and supper club audiences who feel an immediate rapport with her when she steps before them to sing or clown. Since her Broadway debut her rise has been little short of Monique-terrifique. Her two-week engagement stretched to five at the elegant Maisonette in New York. She had holdover en gagements at the Ritz Carlton in Montreal, Chez Gerard in Quebec City, the Thunderbird in Las Vegas, the Chase’s Starlight Roof in St. Louis, and the Mocambo in Hollywood wherein she buxomly belted out naughty numbers such as "If I Could Tell You In English What I Think Of You In French." She has a soon-due LP record album on the Request label called "Mouique At The Maisonette."

Show business was not Monique’s original ambition. The luscious Monique first came to the United States as an exchange student and studied law at New York University. She had dabbled in theatrics in Europe, having appeared in Brussels’ famed "1900 Re vue" in 1946 at the age of 15, but for the most part ignored the offers of Belgian producers who winced at the thought of all that pulchritude being devoured in Darrowesque leanings.