Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler opened the venue in the year of the Exposition Universelle, when the Eiffel Tower was new. They aimed to attract wealthy visitors to the bohemian district of Montmartre with dancing, music and spectacle. Its dancers, including La Goulue and Jane Avril, and the posters of the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, made it world famous. The original building burned down in 1915 and was rebuilt, and the Moulin Rouge still operates today.
In 1889 Paris was full of visitors for the Exposition Universelle, marking a century since the French Revolution. Oller, a Catalan-born entrepreneur, and Zidler, a showman, bought a site on the Boulevard de Clichy and built a dance hall with a vast garden, where a huge model elephant, bought from the exposition, housed a smaller stage and entertainments inside.
The cabaret's star attraction was the quadrille, a dance that became known as the French can-can, with its high kicks and flashes of petticoats. La Goulue, whose stage name meant "the glutton", and her partner Valentin le Désossé ("the boneless") drew crowds of aristocrats and artists alike.
Toulouse-Lautrec, who lived nearby, was a regular. His poster for the Moulin Rouge in 1891, showing La Goulue dancing, helped transform the art of commercial posters, and many of his paintings show its dance floor. The venue has changed over the years, becoming a music hall and cinema before returning to revues. Its story has inspired films including John Huston's Moulin Rouge of 1952 and Baz Luhrmann's musical of 2001.
Key people: Charles Zidler, Joseph Oller, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La Goulue