“The death? Ah I don’t care, I know I have to die since I was little, I got used to this idea. Death is a normal thing. The important thing is not to suffer ». Thus Juliette Gréco on the eve of her last show in our country, precisely at the Manzoni in Milan on 13 July 2015. This is how she expressed herself with clarity, in some way divine and unattainable, muse of French existentialists in the first post-war period and, since then , always around to sing and tread the stage with unchanged vitalitydespite his advanced age.
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Juliette Lafeychine, aka Juliette Gréco, was born in Montepellier on February 7, 1927 of Corsican father of Italian origins, Gerard Gréco, and Bordeaux mother (activist of the Resistance) was raised by her maternal grandparents. In 1946 he moved to the neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Parigi after her mother left the country for Indochina. La Gréco thus began a life of authentic bohemian, quickly becoming the Muse of the existentialists. He made his debut, still very young, performing as a singer in the Parisian cafes of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In 1949 he met trumpet player Miles Davis, who had come to Paris – with a band composed of Tadd Dameron, Kenny Clarke, James Moody and Pierre Michelot – for a series of concerts at the Paris Jazz Festival. THE two had an intense relationship, as Davis himself recounts in his autobiography. His debut in front of the great audience as a singer took place in 49 with a song written by Jacques Prévert entitled “Les feulles mortes”. But, fascinated by her scenic and vocal charisma, other leading poets wrote for her: Jules Laforgue (“L’eternel feminine”), Raymond Queneau (“Si tu t’imagines”). His rival was undoubtedly Edith Piaf. But over time she also managed to enter the graces of song poets such as Brel and Brassens who entrusted her with many successful compositions. For her Serge Gainsbourg wrote “La javanaise” and Aznavour and Leo Ferrè also enriched his repertoire.
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Jean-Paul Sartre became her close friend and wrote La Rue des Blancs-Manteaux for her. It was he who pushed her to attempt a career as a singer. Gréco has been married three times: with the actor Phiippe Lemaire (1953-1956 – with whom she had a daughter, Laurence-Marie Lemaire, born in 1954), with the actor Michel Piccoli (1966-1977) and with the pianist and Brel’s trusted music author, Gerard Jouannest (since 1988). Actress of temperament, she also became popular with the Italian public with the famous television drama Belfagor, broadcast by Rai in the 1960s. The passion for the Belfagor saga accompanied her throughout her life, prompting her in 2001 to appear in a brief cameo in “Belfagor – The ghost of the Louvre”. In the 1990s he had formed an artistic partnership with the authors Étienne Roda-Gil and Caetano Veloso. But the new repertoire was not as successful as the classics of his career.
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A creature of rare and refined beauty, he had a warm, intense, mellow, persuasive and immediately recognizable voice. Always brilliant and witty, on the eve of what would prove to be her last trip to Italy (first at the Spoleto festival, then at the Manzoni in Milan) she declared: “I want everything when I arrive in Italy: all the shoes and all the dishes, and a lot of clothes too. I love Italy. And I love Italians. You would make the most banal woman believe that she is the most beautiful in the world ». He had announced his retirement from the stage for over a year: «I would like to continue forever, the public and desire have not abandoned me. But the body risks doing it and I don’t want it to decide. ‘ The last album of his immense discography with over 2 hours of music and 36 songs is entitled «Merçi», thank you.
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23 September 2020 (change September 23, 2020 | 20:57)
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