Gabriel Théroux, Shirley’s dad, drank a lot, played cards even more and cheated on his wife who better. A good man of his time, what, that of the post-war years in Quebec.
“He might have mistresses and lose money gambling, but I always found him handsome and perfect! writes the artist Shirley Théroux in her biography, born to sing (Libre Expression), launched Wednesday evening in Montreal.
“I’ve been hounded for years to write this book,” added Ms.me Théroux in an interview last week, seated in a café in Saint-Lambert, where she has lived for decades. “I wanted to tell my life to the public who has followed me for 60 years, but does not know me, deep down. I have always been perceived as a perfect girl, with an almost perfect background. Perfection doesn’t exist. »
Gabriel’s daughter, full of faults and qualities, held no grudge against her dad. She continued to adore him even when his gambling caused him to suddenly lose his business in the Plateau-Mont-Royal and his country house in Repentigny, forcing his family of five children to settle in a badly heated slum, without electricity where they had to eat “beans and from balloney “.
“He simply ruined us, summarizes Mme Theroux. When I say everything, that’s absolutely everything. »
Before the fall, one fine day, Théroux senior and his young daughter, named presciently in honor of Shirley Temple, stopped at the cabaret La Ceinture fléchée, rue Sainte-Catherine. The father moved to the bar after hiding the little one in the kitchen.
“I was singing for forks, knives and spoons when my gaze fell on a revolver placed between two counters…”, she says. The child grabbed the gun. After pushing open the swinging doors, she pointed it at her father, intoning “Do you think I’m a cowboy, Pow Pow…”.
The room froze, and Pépère René, bar manager, grabbed the revolver to thunderous applause and a tsunami of relief. “That day, I had my first encore and I took over the song, without a weapon, of course! »
Star and star system
These astonishing confidences spread over some two hundred pages were collected in Zoom meetings during the pandemic and shaped by Caroline St-Hilaire, ex-mayor of Longueuil, recent defeated candidate for the CAQ in Sherbrooke. The two women met for the first time for an interview with QUB radio on the philanthropic involvement of the artist, reputed to be as kind as generous. “I’m a fan of Shirley, but it was quite a contract for me, and she really insisted,” summarizes Mme St-Hilaire in interview.
The summarized life and career accompany the exponential development of the star system and cultural industries in French-speaking Quebec. Shirley Théroux has become a huge record and TV star. Born in 1945, she broke through very quickly by running talent contests in cabarets from pre-adolescence, often in secret from her parents – and she won them all. She compares these contests to today’s telecrochets, of which The voice. The great rival of her youth, the young Raynault, who became Ginette Reno, attended the same class of the same school on Le Plateau-Mont-Royal.
His favorite song (It’s nice a man, recorded in 1965) with a jazzy sound and a hint of lounge, this “hymn to sensuality _, so dated, was an instant hit after a first performance on the show Youth today. The 45 rpm sold more than 60,000 copies in the first month.
The Tanners has also marked popular culture. Shirley Théroux agreed to participate in it, refusing at the same time the launch of a European career after winning the first prize at the Paris International Song Festival. It was in 1973, his annus mirabilis, in his late twenties. “Another culture, another world, far from home, I would not have been happy,” she summarizes in an interview.
“When Télé-Métropole was born, by discovering Cré Basile, Symphorien, Les Tannants, the Quebec public said: finally a television that looks like us! adds the Tannante, remembering that on Radio-Canada radio, she had heard Ti-Blanc Richard, Michèle’s father, presented as Petit Blanc Richard. Channel 2 also played it a bit a lot by “pearl”. “We at 10, it was incredible: we did a show, and the next day all of Quebec was talking about it. »
There are now only memories for the oldest. The tapes have all been erased, or almost. Farewell archives, nothing goes.
Broadcast by “channel 10”, the daily with sketches inspired by burlesque (including the character of Toutoune, just as old) and recorded in front of an audience, rolled on at a frantic and friendly pace thanks to the animation of the hyperactive Joël Denis, abusing his right to bad taste, and the handsome gentleman Pierre Marcotte, “who made all the girls’ heads spin”, writes the one who finally married and left him. Pierre Marcotte died of COVID in July.
The book evokes the saucy, sometimes coarse atmosphere of the film set. In an interview, the host says that she herself was protected against harassment and assault because at the start of her career, she was in a relationship with producer Jean Paquin. The only time a man tried to kiss her by force, she said in an interview, was a journalist and he stormed off when she started screaming at the door of her dressing room.
“I didn’t talk about it [dans le livre] out of respect for his daughter. We must denounce. I am very happy with the movement #MeToo. It was time for this to happen, for women to stand together and talk. »
The trials
She experienced ageism discrimination early on, when her morning show was taken away Falling for something because she was supposedly “too old to do TV”. At 40…
The biography does not conceal the hardships, the meager income for years, the dyslexia, some excess (“drugs, alcohol, travel, lust”), until the painful separation with Pierre Marcotte. Shirley Théroux learned that he was cheating on her with another singer by a phone call while she was working at Hélène-de-Champlain, their restaurant, just like La Boucherie, in Old Montreal, which she kept after divorce and recently resold.
It was in 1987, his annus horribilis. An unfortunate accepted advertising contract for Raisinage weight-loss products led to years of lawsuits for alleged fraudulent advertising (followed by a near-fatal medical crisis), $125,000 in attorneys’ fees, but a final exoneration. “Worst blunder of my life! Calvary for six years! All my savings went there! confides Shirley, daughter of Gabriel, struck in her turn by misfortunes…