Spoiler : Hildegarde (birth name was Hildegarde Loretta Sell) Born in Adell, Wisconsin 2/2/1906; died 7/29/2005 at the Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital in New York City. Was engaged three times to marry, but never married. She grew up in a musical German immigrant family, her father who made his living as a merchant, played drums and the fiddle, her mother was a church organist and choir director. Her family moved to Milwaukee when she was twelve, where she and her two sisters sang in the school choir, and played in the school orchestra. Hildegarde wanted to be a concert pianist, briefly studying music at Marquette University, but economic circumstances forced her to drop out and she turned to vauseville in 1928. She toured the country in vaudeville, then settled in New York where she developed her act, in which she accompained herself on piano, chatted between numbers, often poking fun at herself. Anna Sosenko wrote her signature song, "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup."

Spoiler : Hildegarde became one of the ten best dressed women of the world and owned ten oil wells by 1940. The "Incomparable Hildegarde," or, "Mother Superior Of The Supper Clubs," as she became known when she was a supper club entertainer (1933-1938). She appeared on the cover of Life magazine in 1939. In 1946, she was paid $17,500 a week to appear in plush hotel cabaret rooms and supper clubs, and she received 50 percent of the gross over $80,000. Revlon produced a Hildegarde shade of lipstick and nail polish. Her gowns were designed by Fontana of Rome. Hildegarde's admirers ranged from enlisted men and officers during WWII, to King Gustaf of Sweden and the Duke of Windsor. Walter Winchell gave her the name, "the Incomparable Hildegarde." In the 1930s and 1940s, she spent over $10,000 a year on clothes, by the 1960s, the figure rose to $30,000.

Spoiler : She made had her radio debut in 1936 on The Fleischmann Hour (The Rudy Valle Show) for NBC- Radio. The Girl on "Ninety-Nine Men And A Girl for CBS-Radio (1939). Host of radio programs including Hildegarde on NBC (1943); Beat the Band on NBC (1943-1944); The Raliegh Room on NBC (1943-1946); The Hildegarde Program on NBC (1946-1947).

Spoiler : In 1961, Hildegarde was guest of honor at a gala, at which former US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt presented her with an award naming her "First Lady of the Supper Clubs." From the 1950s to the 1970s, Hildegarde appeared in a number of television specials and toured with the national company of the Stephen Sondheim musical "Follies."