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

The history of the flags of the world

Maybe you've ever stopped to think where the flags come from, because they have those colors or shapes, because some have drawings and others have stripes.Because there are flags of different countries that are very similar, it may be a coincidence or perhaps they have something in common.To this and other questions we will answer in this article that we have titled The history of the flags of the world. History of the flags of the world | Origin of the Flags The flags are responsible for generating the identity signals of a country , it is the embodiment of a series of values that hold a community together or region that share a series of characteristics, whether geographical, cultural or historical. When several nations have shared a common period in history, it is normal that they also share symbols, examples such as the flags of the Nordic countries or as with New Zealand and Australia. Today all countries are represented by their corresponding flag, but ...

Jose Rizal Biography

José Rizal (José Rizal y Alonso; Calamba, Philippines, 1861-Manila, 1896) Filipino politician and writer.He began his university studies with the Jesuits in Manila, and in 1882 he entered the University of Madrid, from which he graduated in medicine and in philosophy and letters.During a trip to Europe he wrote Noli me tangere , an anti-colonial novel in which he denounced the abuses of the Spanish Administration in the Philippines, where its publication was prohibited.Rizal, whose political militancy had begun in the university cloister, was strongly opposed to the inordinate power of the Spanish Catholic Orders.In this sense, his work El filibusterismo summed up his nationalist ideology, which he later spread through the Philippine League, a secret society he founded in Hong Kong. Thanks to a government opening, in 1887 he was able to return to his homeland, but the close police surveillance to which he was subjected forced him to leave the following year.He returned in 1892,...

Frank Capra Biography

Frank Capra (Palermo, Italy, 1897-La Quinta, United States, 1991) American film director of Italian origin, maximum representative of the American comedy of the 30s, which he endowed with a golden humanistic optimism.When he was six years old, his family emigrated to the United States.He studied at the California Institute of Technology, and upon graduation (1918), he obtained a job as a professor in the army.In 1921 he began his film career, and in 1931 he achieved his first great success as a director with The Miracle Woman . Frank Capra The 1930s would in fact be the most valued of his career, as masterpieces such as It Happened One Night belong to it (1934), starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.The film tells the story of a young heiress named Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert), elegant and somewhat headstrong, who has married a ladyboy.Her father, who disapproves of the marriage, forces her to divorce, but the young woman flees from her father's yacht to return ...

Jose Santos Zelaya Biography

José Santos Zelaya (José Santos Zelaya or Celaya; Managua, 1853-New York, 1919) Nicaraguan statesman.After studying in Europe, in 1875 he returned to his country and joined the ranks of the Liberal Party.As a result of the struggles with the conservatives he was exiled in 1884, joining the following year, with the rank of general, the troops of the Guatemalan Barrios. José Santos Zelaya After a new return and exile, in 1887 he settled permanently in Nicaragua.Six years later, he evicted R.Sacasa from the Government and took him over until 1909, thanks to two constitutional reforms that allowed his re-election. During his Government he carried out important social and economic reforms of a liberal nature.At the international level, he unsuccessfully promoted the restoration of the Central American Union and rejected British and American interventionism.Eventually, a conservative revolt led by Chamorro and Estrada and supported by the US overthrew him.He went into exile in Barce...

Andres Iniesta Biography

Andrés Iniesta (Andrés Iniesta Luján; Fuentealbilla, Albacete, 1984) Spanish footballer.Formed at La Masia azulgrana and linked from its origins to Futbol Club Barcelona, he has been one of the fundamental pieces of Josep Guardiola's Barça, winner in 14 of the 18 competitions he played during the four years he served as coach (2008-2012).Equally decisive has been his contribution to the recent successes of the Spanish team: he scored in the final against the Netherlands the goal that gave the Red the World Cup in South Africa (2010) and was declared by UEFA the best player of the European Championship.2012, a trophy that Spain raised for the second time in a row, after also winning the 2008 edition. Andrés Iniesta Andrés y su Younger sister, Maribel, grew up in a working-class family.His father was a bricklayer and his mother helped his grandfather in the bar he ran in town.Always playing ball, at the age of eight his parents decided to enroll him in the selection tests to...

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 ...

Joseph Bramah Biography

Joseph Bramah (Stainborough, 1749-London, 1814) British inventor.A mechanic by profession, he carried out numerous practical inventions: a security lock, a hydraulic press, the water-closet or toilet system, a printer to number banknotes, etc.

Jose Raúl Capablanca Biography

José Raúl Capablanca (Havana, 1888-New York, 1942) Cuban chess player who was world champion from 1921 to 1927.José Raúl Capablanca learned to play chess at the age of four, observing his father's technique.In 1902, when he was only fourteen years old, he participated in the first Cuban national chess championship, qualifying in fourth position. José Raúl Capablanca From then on he took part in various competitions that led him to tour Europe and the United States.Between 1912 and 1915 he published a chess magazine in Havana.During the First World War he stayed in New York, where he won several chess tournaments between 1915 and 1918. He won the world chess championship in 1921, after defeating Emanuel Lasker in Havana.In that same year he published his work Fundamentos del ajedrez and married in the Cuban capital.Capablanca continued to compete and won, among other tournaments, the New York International in 1927.This year he lost his world title to Russian Alexander Ale...

James A. Mirrlees Biography

James A.Mirrlees (Minnigaff, 1936) British economist.He studied at Douglas Ewart High School and Newton Stewart and entered the University of Edinburgh in 1954 to study mathematics, from which he graduated in 1957.From Scotland he left for England after his admission to Trinity College from the University of Cambridge.In this institution he continued his mathematical training, but during his stay in Cambridge there was an approach to economics that led him to do a doctorate in this discipline and which ended in 1963. When Mirrlees finished his studies in Cambridge, began collaborating with Kaldor as a research assistant on issues related to economic growth.From that position he went to the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 1962 and 1963, at which time he was linked to development studies in India.Upon his return to the UK, he obtained a position as Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge. He held the position unti...

José Palet de Rubí Biography

José Palet de Rubí (José Palet Riba; Rubí, 1845- id. , 1908) Spanish republican guerrilla.He took part in the Baldrich uprising of 1867 and, two years later, in the revolt against the fifths.After the revolution of 1868, he was a provincial deputy and mayor of Rubí (1869-1873).After the uprising of General Pavía, he participated in the republican uprising against Martínez Campos, until, defeated in Sarriá, he retired from politics.On April 19, 1907, he defended A.Lerroux with arms when his house was harassed by supporters of Solidaritat Catalana. Son of a liberal mayor and linked to the progressive movement since 1866, in August of 1867 took part in the pronouncement, led by the military and politician Gabriel Baldrich y Palau, of the progressives and democrats of Catalonia and Aragon against Isabel II in Tarragona, which failed due to lack of resources and support. In 1869, he participated in the uprising against the fifths, managing to raise about 1,500 combatants who soon jo...

History Today Online

Search This Blog