OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With The Gorgeous Juliette Greco!

Greetings, music sloots, and welcome to a spanking new edition of Manor Music Monday, today en francais! What does that mean? It means we're about to explore a mesmerizing French chanteuse who briefly became a Hollywood starlet. Tonight at "Gober Moi, Cherie," the Manor's exclusive French music hall and dessert creperie, DJ Li'l Scratch will be playing all of her best tunes, each of which made the French swoon, thoughtfully smoke Gitanes, and ask themselves if they should be proud or ashamed for inventing mayonnaise and Pieds Paquets, or stewed sheep's feet. Shall we? Apres vous, mon ami. 

Isn't she something? A lovely gamine, one might say. And tough as nails, too. Yes, it's the legendary Juliette Greco, whose sultry, commanding, deep-toned voice entranced nearly the entire world just after WWII. As a mysterious, sensual, femme fatale-like figure - whose devotees included Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Miles Davis, the latter whom she had a torrid affair with - she was frequently hailed as "the musical embodiment of the existentialist movement." 

Born the daughter of resistance-fighting parents, she was once captured, imprisoned for several months, beaten and grilled daily by the Gestapo as a little girl in the 1940s. She never forgot about it. “I will fight until the last day of my life," she once said, "against oppression, against intellectual terrorism, and the denial of the only treasure that is worth preserving at all costs: the right to live as we choose."

Her singing career started when she began publicly reading poems to much acclaim at tony hotels and was encouraged to sing. From there, the spark was ignited and it wasn't long before she became a favorite of Europe's radicals and bourgeoisie alike. "Sous le ciel de Paris," a hymn to Parisian lovers, philosophers and a sailor's accordian, was released as a 45rpm in 1958 and became one of her biggest hits. As usual with noted French chanteusses, Juliette doesn't so much perform the song as live within it as an actor might, her voice seemingly casual, almost offhand, yet fully committed to the moment. It just gorgeous, and something, I think, only the French can pull off.

In time, with her fame rising, Hollywood came calling in the form of Darryl Zanuck, the 20th Century Fox mogul who was seriously smitten with her and determined to make her a star and his lover. He succeeded in the later. As a burgeoning star, she had small, but memorable roles in movies like "The Sun Also Rises" in 1957, though never quite caught on, despite receiving strong notices for her lead role opposite Orson Welles in "Crack in the Mirror," a 1960 box office bomb which is well-regarded today, but largely unavailable in the U.S. (even in a decent pirated version). 

No matter, as she tired of Hollywood, despite her adoration for Zanuck and close friendship with Welles, returned to Europe and resumed her singing career, which flourished as never before.

In 1959, the hits kept coming, including "Coin de Rue," a wistful song about a bygone corner cafe, young love and a boy who once broke heart. Again, she approaches this song not like a singer, but an actor, her spontaneity and her depth of feeling bringing the lyric to vivid life.

Juliette was with us long enough to become a living legend. After three marriages, countless records, LPs, tours and television appearances, she was regarded by many come the 1970s as the very last of France's grand chaunteusses, and it's hard to argue with that. She kept touring to rapturous crowds until the early 2000s, silenced only by death at age 93. 

 

What are you listening to this week? DJ Li'l Scratch wants to know.
Till next time...purr, bitches, purr! 🐾

Photo Credits: Getty Images; Universal Music