Documented
Elfi Arkus-Duntov Folies Bergère is a search that wants a stage. What the civil record gives first is a profession word. On 11 February 1939, Boulogne-Billancourt acte 69, 15:30, lists the bride as Elfriede Wolff, danseuse, born Berlin 25 April 1915. The groom signs Zachar Arkus Duntov. She signs Wolff. That is the Billancourt note. Danseuse is on the acte. A Folies playbill with Wolff is not.
Paris, not Berlin
The Folies Bergère is one house: Paris, 32 Rue Richer, 9th arrondissement. There was no Folies Bergère stage in 1930s Berlin. Berlin had other revue roofs. This page will not write Folies Berlin. The meeting night is a different stitch: 9 August 1935, a Berlin café, dry, on the Berlin café note. Walking near a Berlin theater on the way to a date is how Burton has her found. That theater is not a Folies booking.
Corroborated as museum / NCM chain
National Corvette Museum copy places her as a dancer with the Folies Bergère in Paris after she moved there. The same museum chain says the Folies closed on the day of general mobilization, and she was left in the Paris apartment. That close is story weather for the harder drive. The open MG out of Paris starts from that dark house. This page does not invent the hour the lights went out, or a last number, or a storm at the stage door.
An NCM painting-page line, quoted as hers in that chain, reads: “We were the girls who kept our clothes on.” Labelled carefully here as NCM painting-page chain, not as a playbill we hold. It is the Bluebell distinction in that telling. Bluebell Girls exist at the Folies from 1932 under Margaret Kelly. Whether Elfi’s name sits on a Bluebell or Folies programme is still OPEN. This page will not invent a billing, a costume credit, or a tour date.
What stays OPEN
OPEN: a Folies or Bluebell programme with Wolff. OPEN: the exact weeks of her Paris Folies work. OPEN: whether she and Margaret Kelly overlapped in a named season. Documented: danseuse on acte 69; birth 25 April 1915 on that acte; Paris as the Folies house, not Berlin. Corroborated as NCM / museum narrative: Folies job in Paris; house closed on general mobilization; the “clothes on” line as NCM painting-page chain.
The photograph on this page is a period photograph of Elfi Arkus-Duntov. It is labelled period. It is not a Folies stage still. It is not a cartoon. It is not a generated graphic.
The First Lady title is later language. The Folies house does not know it. Chevrolet does not know it. More on the First Lady title and on Zora and the Corvette sits on this site. The Nyassa list is later still.
Margot Dorée is writing the forthcoming novel in that lane. North Star Publishing Group will publish it. Working title First Lady of Corvette. Expected September 2026. It is independent. It is not General Motors. It is not in the museum shop. It will not invent a Folies billing to fill an OPEN.
While that book is still on the way, the live book in the same house is The Woman on the Bonnet: another woman, another machine, another record that will not be decorated.
Sources: Boulogne-Billancourt acte 69, 11 Feb 1939, 15:30 (Elfriede Wolff, danseuse; born Berlin 25 April 1915). Folies Bergère as Paris house (32 Rue Richer); no Folies Berlin stage in the 1930s. NCM Elfi page chain: dancer with Folies Bergère in Paris; Folies closed on general mobilization; left in Paris apartment. NCM painting-page chain: “We were the girls who kept our clothes on.” Bluebell Girls at Folies from 1932 (Margaret Kelly). Programme with Wolff: OPEN. No invented billing. Meeting is Berlin café 9 Aug 1935 (Burton), not Folies.