The world of the night and much more broadly that of the show is in mourning since yesterday. Sunday May 1, Daphné Rotcajg, granddaughter of Régine, announced the death of the iconic singer and actress at the age of 92.
“Régine left us peacefully on May 1 at 11 a.m.“in Paris, Daphne Rotcajg said in a document sent to AFP. “The queen of the night is leaving: closure due to a long and great career“, completed the press release written, at the request of the family, by comedian Pierre Palmade, a close friend of Régine for many years. “Gone off with her disco ball and her warm, reassuring banter“Regine”had danced for more than 30 years in its nightclubs the stars of the whole world“, continued this text.
Following the death of Régine, to whom we owe the hits The Great Zoa Where I will Survive, his funeral was announced by his granddaughter to AFP. They will take place on May 9 in Paris. The ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the crematorium of the Père-Lachaise cemetery, Salle de la Coupole.
Ambassador of the Parisian nightlife in the world, who popularized the discotheque in France, icon of the 60s, Régine owned up to 22 discotheques that bore her first name all over the world, starting with the mythical Chez Régine near the Champs-Elysées, which quickly became the meeting place for all of Paris and the jet-set. It was she who had the “jukeboxes” (automatic distributor of songs recorded on discs) replaced by record players and disc jokeys. She herself was a DJ in 1955 at the Whiskey à Gogo, in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
Many tributes
Inescapable name of the song but also of the cinema, Régine has left many souls in pain. As proof, the many tributes paid since the announcement of his death. That of Pierre Palmade of course, but also that of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Line Renaud or even Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron.
This Monday, the newly re-elected President of the Republic published a long message on the official website of the Elysée, accompanied by his wife, Brigitte Macron. “The queen of the night, the Grande Zoa, the Fréhel de Montparnasse, she had a thousand nicknames, but we only called her by her first name: after decades of lighting up the night, Régine died yesterday, we bequeathing tunes to hum and a certain art of living (…) The night was her kingdom: she loved its suspended temporality, when ‘time’, said Française Sagan, ‘could escape from the clocks’. In its nocturnal palaces, we meet Maurice Chevalier, Maria Callas, Charles Aznavour, Yves Saint Laurent, Rudolph Nureyev or Sacha Distel, all those who, after the long night of the Occupation, are no longer sleepy. His evenings sometimes take on the false air of literary salons: Françoise Sagan, Jean Cocteau, Truman Capote, Henry Miller remake the world there by competing in witticisms“, notably greeted the presidential couple.