In September 1945, Line Renaud was a young 17-year-old singer who had just arrived in Paris. Very quickly, she meets a famous composer, Loulou Gasté, during an audition. From the first glance, the young girl falls head over heels in love with the musician …
“Love at first sight ! He looked crazy in his chic sports outfit, beige gabardine pants, matching cashmere sweater. And a melancholy air because of a divorce from which he was not recovering. He invited me to dinner and then to dance a slow dance in a night club. At the end, he took me on his motorbike“she says in her autobiography And my secrets too. Charmed by Loulou, Line ends the night at home and sleeps with the composer. An evening not necessarily very romantic for the actress and singer who reveals that she has kept “no memory of sensual drunkenness“of that night.”He undressed me like a chicken feather“She adds with humor. Worse, in the early hours of the morning, Loulou asks Line to leave unceremoniously.”It was questionable conduct on the part of a 37-year-old man, to say the least; I was 17. But I thought the biggest culprit was me! No sooner had I met him than I got into his bed. What was he going to think of me?“
To my shame was added the dreadful fear of being pregnant
Vexed, Line is also scared at the idea of being pregnant. She reveals: “To my shame was added the dreadful fear of being pregnant. And how to behave when I went to find my mother? On my face, she would guess everything.“At 18, the actress is forced to abort. A pregnancy would never be accepted in her family she thought. A traumatic memory for Line who had been forced to go see a”angel maker“, abortion being banned at that time.”Pregnant at 18, I could not take charge of this pregnancy. My grandmother would not have forgiven me, she who had been a daughter mother at 17 and had suffered so much. Just like my mother, born from this “fault”. And Loulou didn’t want to be a father.“
Loulou realized that day how much he loved me
Unfortunately, the abortion goes wrong and Line is close to death. In this painful episode, Loulou realizes his love for the singer. In her autobiography, the singer from Nantes reveals the underside of this abortion where she could have stayed there: “Everything is dark in my memory: the room where I lie down, the old woman who stuffs in my stomach with a knitting needle. I almost died of sepsis, and there, Loulou was crying, begging my forgiveness, swearing that he loved me and could not do without me. Despite the horror, I was happy to hear the hoped-for words. An urgently called gynecologist performed a live curettage on the dining room table. But Loulou realized that day how much he loved me. ‘I was praying, I was praying that you wouldn’t die,’ he told me in tears.“Line and Loulou never left each other – despite an extramarital affair with Nate Jacobson – until the composer’s death in 1995.
Find Line Renaud, Saturday March 27, 2021 on France 2 for the Sidaction evening.
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