If Catherine Deneuve got the role, it was however promised to Isabelle Aubret. Indeed, in the Franco-German musical film, “Umbrellas of Cherbourg” by Jacques Demy, Isabelle Aubret was to be the headliner. However, a terrible accident deprived him of it. At the time, the 84-year-old singer was in full glory and produced cabaret after cabaret. Her success allowed her to be selected for Jacques Demy’s project, but life decided otherwise.
Indeed, the artist was the victim of a terrible road accident on the night of April 28 to 29, 1963. An accident which could have cost him his life as revealed by France Sunday. Diving for two days in a coma, Isabelle Aubret finally comes out with “18 Fractures”but above all “disfigured by the rear view mirror”. “At 23 it’s hard”, she laments at the time. And yet, the 84-year-old artist manages to find something positive in this event. The proof, during its passage on South Radio this Monday, March 6.
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Jacques Brel at the bedside of Isabelle Aubret
guest in “Keys to a Life” by Jacques Pessis, Isabelle Aubret saw the host remind her of this painful memory: “There is a project that did not succeed. You were to be the headliner of the “Umbrellas of Cherbourg” Isabelle”. “Yes, that was it. That too was a great adventure. It was the story of first love. In fact, I had the impression that Jacques Demy had written my story from the beginning to the end. end and then good…”, she recalled. Before calling back: “car accident 15 days before the shoot and it doesn’t happen. I think I must have a good nature, I only remember pretty things”.
And among the “pretty things”there is the first “big and pretty thing”. When Jacques Brel came to his bedside. “He comes to see me at the hospital, hugs me and says ‘my little man, what happened to you?'”, she remembers amused by visualizing this moment. In addition to the singer who died on October 9, 1978, Isabelle Aubret also had the right to a visit from Michel Legrand, who composed the soundtrack of the “Umbrellas of Cherbourg”. The latter, seeing his friend with “pins sticking out” of his legs and a “plaster up to the top of the chest”yet dropped a sentence that she will never forget. “It doesn’t matter, you will sing the Umbrellas of Cherbourg”he launched, making the 84-year-old artist still hilarious.
RF