Dani (real name Danièle Graule) had a thousand lives. Model, actress, singer, nightclub owner, florist: it’s hard to put her in a box. On the night of July 18 to 19, this passionate woman with a sometimes complicated journey died at the age of 77 following a heart attack in her apartment in Tours. She had been living there since confinement,”without money” but serene. Her manager, Lambert Boudier, paid tribute to a woman for whom “amour“was the key word. Since the announcement of her death, the tributes of celebrities, those who knew or admired her, have rained down like that of Etienne Daho.
Dani, not just a singer: when the cinema calls her
Born on October 1, 1944, to a shoemaker father and a mother of Catalan origin and a shoe seller, the eldest of three siblings left Perpignan at the age of 19 to attend the Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 1960s. She was caught up in the world of fashion and posed for brands as well as magazines. She is at every party. It was at this time that she met Benjamin Auger, a photographer from Hi buddies (died in 2002), with whom she lives a tumultuous relationship of more than 20 years. She has a son with him, Julien born in 1969 and adopts Emmanuel, the child of her companion born in 1964. On the screen side, the young woman begins in front of the camera in a clip by Dick Rivers. She then appeared in about thirty films, often in a supporting role. On his CV are feature films like love on the run et The American night by François Truffaut, several films by Claire Denis (I’m not sleepy) et Orchestra seats by Danièle Thompson (thanks to which she obtained a nomination for the César for best supporting role in 2007). She shares Isabelle Huppert’s cell in A Women’s Affair by Claude Chabrol and embodies the former companion of Guy, the popular singer, in the eponymous film by Alex Lutz. She gives the answer to her friend Julien Clerc. We saw her recently in an episode of Captain Marleaufacing Catherine Masiero.
Flamboyant 1960s and 1970s for Dani
The one who has always had a sense of style tastes the song in 1965 when her first 45 laps titled Tomboyat Pathé-Marconi. From there, everything goes together. She achieves great success with Dad just married the maid in 1968. Dani even finds himself playing for Tom Jones. In 1970, she won the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles-Cros for her first album. After having been a magazine leader, she is preparing to compete in theEurovision with the song Life at twenty-five by Christine Fontane. But the death of Georges Pompidou, which occurred on April 2, 1974, decided otherwise. The competition, scheduled for April 6, will not be broadcast as it is a national day of mourning. In 1975, Claude François entrusted him with the first part of his tour. She became a queen of the night until the early 1980s, when she opened L’Aventure, a club on the Champs-Elysées. This rock muse rubbed shoulders with the stars of the time: Salvatore Adamo, Michel Polnareff, Thierry Le Luron, Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye and Marc Porel, actor half-brother of photographer Jean-Marie-Périer.
Dani: his return to music in 2001 with Etienne Daho
Withdrawn in the Vaucluse, she published in 1987 Drugs, the galley, where she recounts her addictions and how she survived. She became a recognized florist with several boutiques in Paris where she specialized in roses under the Au nom de la rose brand. Then she returned to the record business thanks to her accomplice Etienne Daho, who had her recorded like a boomerang, a title by Serge Gainsbourg. It was a big success that they performed together on the Victoires de la Musique stage in 2002. We also saw Dani sing on stage at the Casino de Paris with Vanessa Paradis and Jane Birkin. In 2005, she released the album let me laugh, unanimously acclaimed by critics. In 2010, she released Dani’s Paris, a tribute to the city of light. She had just finished touring her latest album, golden horizons and she put an end to her new disc, Attention departure. She had written another autobiography in 2016. There was material as her life was rich and full.
To (re)discover Dani’s life in pictures, it’s happening in our special slideshow by ici.
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