After Michou, the Paris by Night loses another of its legends. On May 1, Régine left, revealed her granddaughter to AFP. A death that moved show business, she who had made the stars dance for decades in her establishments. Even President Emmanuel Macron wanted to pay tribute to him.
The newly re-elected head of state signed a joint text with his wife Brigitte, unveiled this Monday, May 2 on the Elysée site. “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“, underlines the presidential couple.
Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte, who traced the beginnings of his life to his immense glory in the middle of the night both in France and abroad thanks to clubs open almost everywhere, added: “She was everywhere the lights shonein its clubs, on the stages of the Olympia, Bobino, the Folies Bergère or Carnegie Hall, and even on our screens, in Mazel Tov by Claude Berri, Le Train by Pierre Granier-Deferre or Les Ripoux by Claude Zidi . Régine, finally, who prided herself on only sleeping three hours a day, rarely closed her eyes, but always held out her hand, generously committing herself, founding SOS Drugs International and presiding over SOS Habitat and Care.“
The disappearance of Régine, whose real name is Régina Zylberberg, has moved many personalities such as the former first lady Carla Bruni or her great friend Pierre Palmade. The presidential couple was also touched by his death. “The President of the Republic and his wife salute a great figure in Parisian nightlife and French song. They send to his family, to all those who have danced Chez Régine, to all the French people who like to sing his songs, their heartfelt condolences“, adds the press release.