Jose Oller Roca Biography

José Oller Roca

(Terrasa, 1839-Paris, 1922) French businessman, one of the leading figures in Belle Epoque Paris, creator of the Moulin Rouge.His instinct and his entrepreneurial character made him for years considered the greatest entertainer of Parisian nights.

Although born in Spain, Oller Roca moved to Paris at the age of three, as his father, Francisco Oller Xatart, had gone to the capital of the Seine from his native Catalonia to start a textile business which was immediately prosperous.José's two brothers, Alejandro and Juan, were born in Paris and his mother, Teresa Roca, died.

José Oller's childhood was spent in a placid and comfortable environment.He was educated as an intern at the Liceo de Saint Denis, and expanded his training with trips to Europe and visits to his relatives in Spain, where he perfected his knowledge of Spanish.After finishing his studies, he helped his father in the weaving business for a time, but soon began to study some personal projects.In 1864 he proposed to the government of Spain the establishment of a steamship service between the Canary Islands, which was rejected, and put into practice successfully thirty years later, when Oller was already fully dedicated to his business activity.

In 1865 he started his first business: a betting agency for horse racing.In 1867 he perfected it by devising a system of mutual bets, the Paris-mutuel, which was a resounding success.Soon after, Oller's ingenuity led him to invent a printing machine for betting tickets powered by the recently created Lenoir motor.

With his activity in racing, José Oller had become a rich man.However, luck turned its back on him in 1875, when a court declared the business of betting on horse races illegal.Oller, who had married the Peruvian Carmen Coello six years earlier, knew that the time had come to turn his business around.In the course of his travels in Europe he had gotten to know the world of theater closely and learned some stage design skills, and he decided to put them into practice by opening a venue for variety shows that he christened Fantaisies Oller.

Parisians welcomed the idea with enthusiasm, and packed the venue every night.Two years later Oller opened a new venue, the Theater des Nouveautés, with three thousand seats.In 1882 he founded the Saint Germain racecourse and patented an electric lighting system for the race track.In 1885, he launched La Grande Piscine Rochechuart in the center of Paris, an indoor pool of 600 square meters, which had 500 cabins, a gym and a sauna, and through which 25,000 people came to pass annually.

At the age of 46, José Oller had become a prestigious businessman and a significant man in Parisian social life.But it was in 1886 when Oller gave the big bang when he inaugurated Le Nouveau Cirque, a venue whose stage was set up to hold circus shows, although, practically immediately, through a complex system created by Oller himself, it could become a pool where water dance numbers were offered.After the opening of this place, no one had any doubt that José Oller was, in his own right, the king of the night in Paris.

In 1889 Paris opened a new Universal Exhibition, and José Oller wanted take advantage of the massive influx of visitors who would invade the city for the Exhibition with another business.He decided to set up a cabaret in the heart of Montmartre, which he baptized with the name of Moulin Rouge.Oller's new premises became the center of social life in Paris.

His cancan dancers were reputed to be the best in town, and Oller himself was concerned about constantly renewing the shows and hiring the best artists capable of offering the most original numbers.Painters such as Toulouse-Lautrec or Jules Cheret captured different scenes from the Moulin Rouge in their paintings, and intellectuals and artists such as Vicent Van Gogh, Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Oscar Wilde or Santiago Rusiñol became regulars of the place.

In 1891, Oller opened at the other end of town another amusement center, Le Jardin de Paris, which started operating when the Moulin Rouge closed its doors.For this reason, the businessman established a free transportation system by means of a bus that transported customers from one location to another.In 1893 she opened the Olympia room, prepared to host music-hall shows that were all the rage in Europe, and where the Bella Otero, considered the ideal of female beauty of the time, triumphed.

Comments

Hernando Tellez Biography

Hernando Téllez (Santafé de Bogotá, 1908-1966) Colombian writer and journalist.From a very young age, he showed his journalistic skills, as a contributor to the magazine Universidad directed by Germán Arciniegas, and as an assistant to Enrique Santos in El Tiempo . He was also deputy director of El Liberal and director of the magazine Semana .During the period between 1943 and 1944 he served as Colombian consul in Marseille and senator of the Republic, but he stood out above all for being one of the most complete writers of his time (he was a translator, commentator, short story writer, essayist and literary critic ). In his extensive essay work he dealt with issues of literature, society, politics and everyday life.Téllez was a poet of the essay, as well as profound; He was a great craftsman of the language, a teacher in a sober and effective handling of the language.He was a sensitive observer of daily life, an acute critic of the social and political life of the country...

The reforms of Japan in the mid-19th century

From 1868 a series of reforms were carried out that gave Japon its modern physiognomy, disconcerting due to its contrasts and the juxtaposition between innovations and conservatism. Social and economic reforms The social reform was the one that conditioned all the others.Without altering the hierarchical order, their anachronistic appearances were destroyed to be subordinated to the needs of the State. The abolition of the feudal regime that characterized Japan made sharecroppers the owners of the lands they cultivated.The fiefdoms were transformed into administrative constituencies and, henceforth, the noble titles were purely honorary. The old "nobility" happened mostly to the service of the State, many of its samurais became an efficient source of government and administrative personnel. The peasantry did not suffer abrupt changes, since the rates and grievances that the old nobility demanded then passed to the State.Perhaps the most notable transform...

Frank norris Biography

Frank Norris (Chicago, 1870-San Francisco, 1902) American storyteller.With his contemporary Stephen Crana, he is considered the initiator of naturalism in American narrative literature.Of Anglo-Saxon descent, Frank Norris was the son of a wealthy jewelry wholesaler.Since childhood, his mother had inspired him with enthusiasm for Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and R.L.Stevenson, and this admiration was decisive in his career. Frank Norris In San Francisco, where the family had moved when he was fifteen, and later in Paris, he studied painting.In the French capital he attended the Artistic Institute of Paris, at the time of Émile Zola and Guy de Maupassant, whose work he did not know.Frank Norris immersed himself in the studies of Jean Froissart, the Chanson de Roland and the Middle Ages.His medievalism assumed literary form, when he was nineteen, in Yvernelle , a chivalric romance in verse. Returned to America, he spent four years as a rich and neglectful young man, although...

Agustin Duran Biography

Agustín Durán (Madrid, 1793-1862) Spanish writer.He is considered one of the introducers of romanticism in Spain and one of the initiators of the historical criticism of literature.He is the author of Discourse on the influence that modern criticism has had on the decline of the ancient Spanish theater (1828), of Trovas in ancient Castilian parla (1829), of studies about Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina and legends. Agustín Durán He studied at the seminary in Vergara and then at the Faculty of Law of the University of Seville.He practiced law in Valladolid and later professed public education, where he would achieve a prominent position.On the death of Fernando VII, he received several offers, but he preferred to sacrifice his future career, which would have been facilitated by his social position, to philological studies.He became director of the National Library, a position in which he was able to dedicate himself to his activity as bibliographer and researcher and text ed...

X-ray history

The X-rays were discovered in 1895 and from there they became a very revolutionary application in many branches of science, from astronomy to radiographs that we have not done so many times.the 120th anniversary of the X-rays knowing his inventor and the research that led him to such an important scientific advance. Article index Who invented the X-rays? The inventor or, rather, the person who discovered the X-rays was Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen , a German physicist who was focused on the field of electromagnetics Nothing else to present his discovery, Rontgen's theory received great attention from critics and public, and was translated into French, English or Russian. Although it is not a name as well known today as that of others you celebrate writers, the name of Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen is written in gold letters in the medical field, where he has had and has and numerous applications.The importance of his discovery was such in his day that he was the first Nobel Prize ...

Alberto Ullastres Calvo Biography

Alberto Ullastres Calvo (Madrid, 1914-2001) Spanish politician, economist and lawyer.Minister of Economy (1957-1965) and Spanish ambassador to the EEC (1965-1976), Ullastres began his training with law studies at the Complutense University of Madrid, simultaneously with those of a business professor, specialized in Economics.During his university stage he actively worked as a director of the National Action Youth. Alberto Ullastres During the years of the Civil War he was complement lieutenant of the Arma de Ingenieros, on the national side, on the fronts of Asturias, Aragón, Levante and in the 83 Division of the Galician Army Corps, achieving the Campaign Medal, Red Cross of Military Merit, Warrior Cross, Medal of the Siege of Oviedo, and citations in the order of the day during the Battle of Nules. After the Civil War, Ullastres received his doctorate in Law and was a member of the Institute of Economics of the Higher Council for Scientific Research ( CSIC).As a collaborator...

Isaac II Angelo Biography

Isaac II Angelo (Isaac II Angelo or the Angel;?, 1155-Constantinople, 1204).Emperor of Byzantium (1185-1195 and 1203-1204).He was the first representative of the Angel dynasty.During his years of reign he overcame the many complications that arose, but despite his ability as a ruler, at his death, the Empire was more weakened, mainly due to the problems in the Balkans. Son From Andronicus the Angel, he occupied the throne of Byzantium on September 12, 1185, after a revolution dethroned Alexius I Komnenos, the last of the Komnenos emperors.It was the harshness of the rule of Alexios and the fear of the Normans, who had recently conquered Thessalonica, the causes that elevated the Angels to the imperial throne. Isaac II Angelo and his son Alexius IV The same year as Isaac's coronation, his leader, Alexius Dranas, defeated Norman William II and he put to flight the Norman army that was heading towards Constantinople.After expelling the Normans in the Balkans, an insurrection ...

Hachiko's story: biography, legend and curiosities

Can a dog become an essential character for the story? You will verify that if with the History of Hachiko: biography, legend and curiosities of this historical can. Index of the article Biography of Hachiko Hachiko is an icon in Japan, a sign of love and the loyalty that an animal can give us to human beings.Books have been written about him and he has starred in very blockbuster movies, but do you know the real story of Hachiko ? We tell you his biography and also the legend that is around him.If for you this character is not yet well known, we advise you to have a package of handkerchiefs at hand, because you can escape the occasional tear with his beautiful legend and when You know the noble heart of this Japanese dog. Hachiko was born on a farm in Akita Prefecture, in Odate, in Japan.According to the data, a university professor named Hidesaburo Ueno had just lost his dog, and the family decided to adopt a new animal.The dog arrived in a box to the shibuya station and,...

Francesco Accursio Biography

Francesco Accursio (Francisco or Francesco d'Accorso or Accursio; Bagnolo, c. 1185-Florence ?, c. 1263) Jurisconsult Italian.Glosser and renovator of Roman law, he is especially remembered as the author of the Great Gloss . Francesco Accursio Francisco Accursio was the greatest jurist of the Bolognese school, a glorious expression of Italian civilization in the Middle Ages who, worthily linked to the Roman legal tradition, not only carried out a passionate work of investigation and reconstruction, but also gave rise to that right Common that was the Roman law of the Middle Ages, from which the pandectists of the 19th century later descended to found the modern science of law.The researchers of this school were called "Glosadores", from "gloss", literal rectification of an interpretive nature and often also commentary on controversial passages, through a comparative study of them or also through an original reconstruction. Of peasant origin (the sur...

Gregorio luperón Biography

Gregorio Luperón (Puerto Plata, 1839-1897) Dominican patriot, hero of the Restoration War and main leader of the Liberals during the Second Republic. Gregorio Luperón Having achieved the independence of Haiti in 1844, the First Dominican Republic (1844-1861) had to suffer both the repeated attacks of the Haitians, that they threatened the national sovereignty, such as the dictatorial ways of the presidents who alternated in power during those years: Pedro Santana and Buenaventura Báez.At the end of his last term (1858-1861), Pedro Santana decided to annex the country to Spain; His idea was to put an end to the permanent threat from Haiti, but also to perpetuate himself in power, since he accepted in exchange the position of captain general of the new Spanish province of Santo Domingo. The Baecistas continued to govern for three more years without their leader, whom they deposed to prevent the blue party from displacing them from power through a revolution.This took place in 18...

History Today Online

Search This Blog