Alys Robi would have been 100 years old today, and it is the indifference that Quebec offers her as a gift. Neither her hometown nor the Quebec government underlines the century of birth of this star popular who sparkled, in her time, more than any other Quebecer. The silence that accompanies this centenary bears witness to a Quebec that is still struggling to honor the memory of its illustrious women.
The life of Alys Robi, however, is a modern myth. Born on February 3, 1923 and cradled by the poverty of the penniless lower town of Quebec, Alice Robitaille managed, without education, to reach the pantheon of song until rubbing shoulders with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin or Nat King Cole in the musical firmament of the post-war period.
Starting from nothing, it reached the zenith: Hollywood, planetary glory, hits heard on the radio, from London to Rio. The Quebecer notably participated in the beginnings of television, sang in front of British royalty and made Quebec shine abroad at a time when crucifixes shone more than culture in La Belle Province.
“She has always been extremely proud to be Quebecer, underlines her great-niece Chantal Ringuet, also author of a biography devoted to Alys Robi. She always told abroad how Quebec was, for her, the most beautiful place in the world. »
“She is a woman who had an absolutely incredible career for her time,” recalls historian Catherine Ferland, president of the Rendez-vous d’histoire de Québec. We may talk about Celine Dion, but before her, there was Alys Robi. »
She saw her meteoric rise come to an abrupt end at the age of 25, on the roads of California. Victim of an accident, she returns to Quebec for her convalescence, where she witnesses the death of her little brother, a tragedy that feeds a severe depression. Terminus: the psychiatric hospital. Between 1948 and 1953, she suffered the archaic treatment of her time at the asylum in Quebec. Electroshocks, isolation, lobotomy: for five years, his dream turns into a nightmare.
Alys Robi tried to get back on the boards after her internment, but the public who once adored her began to shun the diva, who had become “crazy” in her eyes. It was the gay community that allowed her return, raising the singer to the rank of icon of the ostracized.
“My great-aunt embodied freedom and openness to others at a time when it did not correspond at all to the parameters of society,” explains Chantal Ringuet. Compared to recent battles in Quebec and elsewhere, it could not be more topical, even at the forefront of its time. »
A centenary in silence
Yet his 100e birthday goes unmentioned, especially in his hometown. “We have already honored her twice,” explains Quebec. By naming Parc Alys-Robi in the Saint-Sauveur district, as well as by placing a commemorative plaque in her honor on the house where she was born. »
The traces of the famous singer, in Quebec, are within a radius of 150 m, far from all the busy routes. The Alys-Robi park, even in summer, turns out to be little frequented: it is mainly the owners of dogs who come there to walk the canine gentry at the time of small needs.
“This park… sighs Chantal Ringuet. I went there again recently: it’s sad. It’s truly sad. »
The artist’s birthplace, still standing in the neighborhood of his childhood, enjoys “presumed” heritage status in the eyes of the Commission d’urbanisme et conservation de Québec. This is the status granted to another “famous” temple of song in the capital, the former bar Kirouac, whose story of the karaoke evening transformed into a hotbed of the outbreak of COVID-19 during the pandemic is gone viral.
“Alys Robi deserves more,” says her great-niece. She is one of the great Quebec artists and one of the greatest singers of the XXe century, there is no doubt. She was a free and independent woman before her time: at the height of her glory, she earned US$2,000 a week, an amount that a Quebec worker took on average two years to pocket! She was unmarried and she also had many lovers at a time when the church controlled everything. Her internment was also because she was too big for her time and she had to be reduced, locked up. »
Tributes for men
The case of Alys Robi, according to Catherine Ferland, is symptomatic of a Quebec where men still largely dominate the public space. “Why do we not hesitate to build Jean-Béliveau places with millions, but there is nothing for women of the caliber of Alys Robi? asks the historian. There are many men who received far greater honors during their lifetime for far less accomplishments. I don’t think Celine Dion even has a statue of Charlemagne! »
The Quebec diva once had her sculpture in her hometown, but a lack of maintenance condemned it to demolition. Celine Dion’s childhood home no longer exists either. Even if she has sold more than 200 million albums, that her absence from a list of the great voices of the world is enough to raise an outcry among her compatriots and that she easily manages to fill, 10 evenings rather than one, the Bell Centre, there is only one boulevard to honor “Céline” in Quebec.
The Commission de toponymie du Québec states that of the 45,000 places named in memory of a person in the province, 90% bear the name of a man. Illustration of this disparity: Alys Robi gave his name to two parks and a dead end in Quebec. His former love, the actor Olivier Guimond, is entitled to two parks, a building, a square, a path, a stopover and six streets.
Nor has any Quebecer yet had the honor of giving her name to a highway. Steel and aluminum had this privilege before them: there are highways in Quebec that dignify these metals, but none that commemorate a female figure.
“It’s much more difficult for women to fit into the ‘hard’, explains Catherine Ferland. Even around the National Assembly, there is only one monument dedicated to women and, precisely, it is dedicated to women, so none in particular. It’s as if we had to pay homage to them as a batch. If our female figures do not exist in the public space, they disappear in the eyes of the population and their memory ends up fading. We have a huge deficit in Quebec with respect to that memory. »
The City of Quebec lists, for example, the illustrious people who have marked its four centuries of history. On the list of 1180 names, The duty counted 36 women — or 3% of the total.
The Rendez-vous d’histoire de Québec will mark Alys Robi’s centenary in August. “For us, there was no doubt that she deserved it,” says Catherine Ferland. Alys Robi, all the children still know her today, continues the historian. The song tick, tick, popularized in the 1940s, still resonates 80 years later. Who can boast of such a feat? That says a lot about us and our relationship to history, particularly our relationship to women’s history, the fact that we didn’t think of anything for her centenary, that nobody organized anything for her. »