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.