Juliette Gréco, naked singer in Brazil

Juliette Gréco, at the end of 1950, gave her first concerts abroad on the occasion of an engagement in Rio de Janeiro. She discovered upon her arrival that the press imagined that she sang naked. One of the paradoxes of her career as an infinitely French singer…

In partnership with the exhibition It’s a song that resembles us – Worldwide hits of French-speaking popular music At the Cité internationale de la langue française in Villers-Cotterêts, these chronicles look in detail at each of the stories presented there.

In the most chic cabarets of Rio de Janeiro at the end of 1950, for a clientele that mixed wealthy tourists and businessmen with the best Brazilian society, the pinnacle of French chic appeared on stage: Juliette Gréco. She was 23 years old and her career had begun barely 18 months earlier. To sum up, she was one of those free children of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, a bit of an actress in a few plays for turbulent young people or in radio dramas. A combination of circumstances led her to have to sing three songs in front of a select audience, for which Jean-Paul Sartre himself helped her choose the lyrics. The lyrics proposed by the writer are If you imaginea poem by Raymond Queneau, The Eternal Feminine by Jules Laforgue and White Coats Street by Sartre himself. The writer sent her to ask for original music from his friend and neighbor Joseph Kosma, the composer of the Dead leaves. And these are the three songs that Juliette Gréco sang on stage at the cabaret Le Bœuf sur le toit, in Paris, in June 1949. The start of a career whose last concerts would take place in 2016, 67 years later.

In Paris, Juliette Gréco reigns over the Rose Rouge, a cabaret on the Left Bank where she sings late at night, clad in a black dress whose collar and long sleeves reveal only her face and hands. Journalists, speaking of her stage appearances, have written sentences like: “Her dress reveals nothing of her curves”. And when she arrives in Brazil, it’s her first plane trip, the young Gréco is immediately taken to a press conference. And there, she realizes that a rumor has preceded her. The journalists believe that her stage outfit that reveals her curves is simply that she sings naked. In addition, it is consistent with the rumor that she is the lover of Jean-Paul Sartre, the scandalous existentialist philosopher, that is to say pornographer. And faced with this reputation, the young singer obviously sees her stage fright increase tenfold before going on stage.

Juliette Gréco nevertheless triumphs in her long black Balmain dress. Her engagement in Rio is extended for two months. She even sings at the inauguration reception of the President of the Brazilian Republic. And abroad, it will be a few more years before she is suspected of pornography. Another crazy story of Juliette Gréco abroad, on the occasion of the launch of an Elsa Schiaparelli perfume, she records a waltz composed by Henri Sauguet with a single word: “If’In the United States, his voice was considered too reminiscent of something that radio listeners should not hear. The Waltz of Ifs was censored in 1957.

In this episode of This song reminds me of usyou hear excerpts from:

Juliette Greco, Dead leaves, 1952

Juliette Greco, If you imagine, 1950

Juliette Greco, The Eternal Feminine, 1954

Juliette Greco, The White Coats Street, 1950

Juliette Greco, At the sign of the heartless girl, 1952

Juliette Greco, Under the stars, 1951

Juliette Greco, The Waltz of the Ifs, 1957

You can also extend this column with the book This song reminds me of us published by Heritage Publishing.

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