Gaby Deslys (born Marie-Elise-Gabrielle Caire, 4 November 1881 – 11 February 1920) was a French singer and actress during the early 20th century.

[3][4] Renowned for her beauty, she was courted by several wealthy gentlemen including King Manuel II of Portugal.

[5][6] Deslys had many admirers among royalty, most notably King Manuel II of Portugal, and her origins became the subject of dispute.

A private detective claimed her true name was Hadiwga Nawrati or Hedvika Navrátilová and that she was a Czech peasant girl, born in the village of Horní Moštěnice, then part of Austria-Hungary.

The investigator reported that Deslys had denied her alleged mother's claim to kinship when he brought her to see the dancer, paying her a large amount of money to leave.

According to him, Deslys had been born in Marseilles on 4 November 1881 (despite some sources claiming her birth year was 1884), daughter of Hippolyte Caire and his wife, Mathilde (née Terras).

[7] This study found that the claim of the Navrátil family was incorrect and was based on their daughter's being a look-alike of Gabrielle Caire, who later adopted the stage name Gaby Deslys.

She was a practitioner of several types of dance such as the Ju-Jitsu waltz,[8] Ballroom, Grizzly Bear, Turkey Trot and her most famous The Gaby Glide.

In 1906 The Tatler featured a full-page portrait of "The famous Parisian actress who takes an important part in The New Aladdin, to be produced at the Gaiety Theatre on Saturday next [29 September]".

[12] She began her movie career in 1914 with Rosy Rapture, a short film based on the play of the same name in which she had appeared in England.

[citation needed] Deslys' celebrity rose following newspaper stories which gossiped about King Manuel II of Portugal's infatuation with her.

Their relationship was anything but discreet (she would arrive before night at the Palácio das Necessidades and would pass through Portugal unnoticed); abroad, meanwhile, they were on the front pages of newspapers in Europe and North America, especially after he was deposed in 1910.

In public interviews, usually on trips, Deslys never negated the obvious, but nearly always refused to comment on her relationship with the deposed king.

I was then attacked by the Republican newspapers because reports had been spread that I had put up at the Royal Palace itself [...] These suspicions [of the King's financial difficulties] are entirely unfounded, for the trifling gifts he made me were not sufficiently expensive to affect even a middle-class budget.

[citation needed] Deslys and Pilcer became a successful dance act duo during the First World War on a par with the Castles, but it is unclear if they ever legally married.

In 1943, her life story was bought by MGM as a potential film property for Judy Garland to be produced by Arthur Freed, but it was shelved after a few script treatments.

[19] She was portrayed humorously by the ballerina Tamara Toumanova in the Sigmund Romberg biopic Deep in My Heart (1954), directed by Stanley Donen.