Colette Renard: PBLV, 4 marriages, Fernandel... loves and scandals of Irma la Douce
Colette Renard died 12 years ago, on October 6, 2010, and yet her memory lives on in our minds. From her crazy success on the female orgasm 'Les Nuits d'une Demoiselle' to her emblematic role in 'Irma La Douce', the wife of composer Raymond Legrand has lived a thousand and one... exciting lives! Here's what you need to know about Colette Renard...
It's been 12 years since Colette Renard left us, deceased of cancer on October 6, 2010. She certainly marked the history of French song with her role in the operetta Irma LaDouce and his interpretation of naughty songs as The Nights of a Maiden , no offense to the prudish ears of the 60s... Her odd jobs, the men in her life, her animals, her illness: find out everything you (perhaps) didn't know about the singer with her recognizable voice among a thousand .
Her first love? The cello
Colette Lucie Raget , his real name, was born on November 1, 1924 in Ermont, then located in Seine-et-Oise, to a cabinetmaker father and a seamstress mother. It was from a young age that she fell in love with music and embarked on extensive learning of the cello .
A star before its time
Child, Colette Raget stupefies his classmates thanks to that perfect diction (which will be used later). ' It's something I loved from the age of five. While I was still with my parents, I went to see a diction teacher who made me recite The Cat, the Weasel and the Little Rabbit, I loved it... Later, I saw some school friends again. school who said to me, 'It doesn't surprise us what's happening to you, because when you said lyrics in school, we got chills' “, she confided in I Sing Magazine . A star before its time!
Perfumes, pastries, hair and health
Before she can give herself body and soul to the music , Colette Raget must cut short her dreams of glory when she suffers a very serious surgical intervention , the nature of which it does not reveal.
She then decides to give up the cello and connects the odd jobs . ' I knitted sweaters, wrapped perfumery, sold cupcakes and even posed for painter friends. I also worked at a hairdresser where I did styling ', she explained in TV 7 Days . Finally, Colette Renard participated in a radio hook it won and received the Grand Prix de Deauville in 1956.
The role that changed everything
Destiny or chance: she is immediately spotted by the screenwriter Alexandre Breffort , which hires him to appear in the musical Irma LaDouce . For more than ten years, she enchanted spectators and made herself known to the general public with a role that had originally been offered to Juliette Greco … ' Since 1956, the year when I started to sing Irma la Douce, I have sung it for twenty-five or thirty years almost every day, whether in a television or radio program or in a gala. “, she said in I Sing Magazine .
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Why 'Fox'
When she started out in music, Colette Raget chose a new surname for the scene. It will be… 'Renard' ! ' It's the name of an aunt that I loved very much, my grandmother's sister. Moreover, at the same time, a young man named Marius Renard had undergone the first kidney transplant, and as my accident was also renal, it struck me, I had followed the story of this boy a lot. “, she detailed in I Sing Magazine .
She married 4 times
Colette Renard conquered French listeners and spectators with her extraordinary voice, but she also seduced many men. The singer was married no less than four times ! In 1945, when she was barely 20, she married John Houssin and divorced two years later. Then, from 1952 to 1955, it was with Georges Chottin that she is in the household.
In 1960, Colette Renard said 'yes' to the composer Raymond Legrand (who is none other than the father of Michel Legrand), in Montaut-les-Créneaux, near Auch, in the Gers. ' Colette Renard wore a very short gray dress, adorned with ruffles and a wide white collar, while Raymond Legrand was dressed in a very strict blue suit “, we read at the time, on the front page of The Dispatch . The ceremony is intimate. Only the parents of the bride and groom and a few close friends are there. Even Michel Legrand , the groom's son, who was 28 years old at the time, was not not here . Nine years after the ceremony, Colette Renard et Raymond Legrand separate...
Raymond Legrand born May 23, 1908 in Paris. Composer of music for films and songs. Conductor. 2nd wife Colette Renard. pic.twitter.com/GChrUR8U6p
— effengel (@effengel) May 24, 2017
It was in 1978 that Colette Renard married the man of her life, the one to whom she would remain faithful until the end of her days... He breathed his last in 2002, alongside the singer.
A naughty joke... turned into a hit!
We know Colette Renard for her particular voice, but also for her audacity, unique for the time. In 1963, the artist sings The Nights of a Maiden , a title entirely devoted to female orgasm pleasures . It was during a dinner with the writer and producer Guy Breton that Colette Renard and her husband at the time, the composer Raymond Legrand , take the gamble of recording this piece and a dozen others at more than suggestive lyrics … ' By the end of the evening, they were so insistent that I finally gave in. I said to them, 'Okay, I want to record, but it has to stay between us, it's just for fun '' she recalled in I Sing Magazine .
The songs might never have been discovered by the general public, yes, but... One day, one of them was on the radio, to the great surprise of Colette Renard, who decided to try everything and chanter in public all the ' libertine songs ' that she recorded. Courage that paid off!
She had an affair with Fernandel
The rumor was never confirmed, but in the 1970s it was rumored that Colette Renard had a secret liaison with the comedian Fernandel . Info or intox ? We'll probably never know...
His animals, his treasures
In 1978, Colette Renard presented on television his furry companions . In the show 30 Million Friends , she shows us his dogs Nini, a Bouvier des Flandres, et Quéribus, a Pinscher, his alley cats Félix, Gigi and Paola, or even Pimpin, the Lapland , who live with her in her house in Milon-La-Chapelle, in the Yvelines.
More beautiful life , they are 'miracle'
After periods of relative calm, Colette Renard once again saw the spotlight shine on her in 2004, when she was chosen to interpret the character of Rachel Lévy, in the famous series More beautiful life . ' PBLV was a miracle for me. I was depressed, I was very sad. It gave me this happiness to be in Marseille, to have actors around me… It gave me a taste for life again “, she confided in Can't wait for Sunday .
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After five years of good and loyal service, Colette Renard, diagnosed with brain cancer in 2006, leave the shoot to take a rest. A year later, she dies as a result of the disease and is buried in Milon-la-Chapelle, alongside her husband Michel Wandler.
Source journaldesfemmes.fr
