We do not measure the influence of Alys Robi, his trajectory to the top of international showbiz having been darkened by a psychiatric internment and a lobotomy. In his book Alys Robi was great – New look at a pioneering figure, Chantal Ringuet digs into the fate of the “war singer” and sheds new light on her tragic fate as a free woman dispossessed of herself.
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Chantal Ringuet is the great-niece of Alys Robi. However, for her, the famous singer has long remained an enigma. Silence surrounded her life, even though the women of her family had known her, and that her grandmother, to whom the author was very close, had a privileged relationship with the icon of the 1940s during the last decades. of his life.
The desire to dig into this story came to her in 2015 when an aunt entrusted her with the family archives. “On several photos, there was Alys Robi,” she says. She was amazed. In her grandmother’s house, portraits of the whole extended family were on display, but none of Alys Robi, who was nevertheless one of the most famous Quebec women of her time …
Not a simple biography
His book on Alys Robi is not a traditional biography. Chantal Ringuet retraces the career of the star, from her beginnings as a child star in the lower town of Quebec in Hollywood. She also recounts her own quest to understand the fate of her great-aunt and the relationships she had with the women in her family, which reveals the gap between their reality and that of the singer.
“It had to be shown,” she judges. Alys Robi embodied the voice of a people, but she was an oversized, free woman who did not want to get married. It greatly disturbed the customs of a time when the clergy had control over society and the life of families. ”
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Chantal Ringuet
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I think the biggest mistake [qu’Alys Robi] did is to come back to Quebec. If she had stayed in the States, she would have rested, maybe seen a psychiatrist, but she wouldn’t have been locked up like here.
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Chantal Ringuet
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Born in 1923 in the Saint-Sauveur district, in the lower town of Quebec, Alice Robitaille started singing in public when she was very young – at 4 years old! – and joined the troupe of Rose Ouellette, known as La Poune, at 13 years old. These were only the first steps in a career at full speed that would transport her, in her early twenties, from New York to London via Brazil, Mexico and Hollywood.
However, her momentum was stopped dead in 1948: on a road in California, she had a car accident which caused her in particular a concussion. Less than a year later, she was interned in a psychiatric hospital in Quebec where she underwent a lobotomy. She is 25 years old.
Women’s destinies
Chantal Ringuet wanted to tell Alys Robi by locating her not only among the women of her family, but also in “the” communities of women to which she is linked. This includes actresses and singers molded or crushed by the Hollywood machine, and other women, including celebrities like Eva Perón and Rosemary Kennedy, who have undergone lobotomies.
“What we also know is that in Quebec, as in the United States, the vast majority of people sent to asylum were women. At least two-thirds, she says. It doesn’t surprise me, but it sheds an interesting light on the way women were treated in society in the past. There is no doubt in her mind that Alys Robi was locked up because she was a woman.
I think there was some pressure on the father and the family. We understand that a woman, a singer who sings love songs, who is not married and who has several suitors, at that time, it is very, very frowned upon.
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Chantal Ringuet
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Chantal Ringuet does not doubt that Alys Robi has gone through a difficult period, especially since she had already had to spend a rest in a sanatorium in 1947, but she believes that the treatment inflicted on her was not only motivated by his state of health.
“She was undoubtedly doing what we would call today a burnout and she had this car accident, suggests Chantal Ringuet. A concussion can leave marks for a very long time. And while she was recovering, the death of her little brother throws her to the ground, as they say. This mourning is added to what she has experienced. ”
Chantal Ringuet does not talk about Britney Spears, whose guardianship has just been lifted after 13 years, in her book on Alys Robi. She still believes that there is a link to be made between the two women. “We see that it is not because 70 years have passed that it is settled. What we can notice, despite the differences, is that we find it hard to believe the words of women, to believe in their ability to regain their autonomy after a difficult period psychically or emotionally. And there is this relationship to the father that repeats itself, she remarks. I believe that we must take a critical look at this way of managing women. ”
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Alys Robi was great
Chantal Ringuet
Quebec America
277 pages
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IMAGE PROVIDED BY QUEBEC AMERICA
Alys Robi was great – New look at a pioneering figure
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