“Françoise Durocher, waitress. Françoise Durocher, waitress. Françoise Durocher, waitress. Françoise Durocher, waitress… » It is Odette Gagnon who pronounces these first words of Françoise Durocher, waitressa 1972 film that the late André Brassard dedicates “to all the waitress fines from Quebec”.
On July 9, her only son, François, announced to me the death of this actress, his dear mother, at the age of 81. I rushed to see this anthology of the Quebec cinematographic repertoire, available on the NFB website. Odette, who is not yet 30, appears in a close-up; alone and petite, like a little bird that is both ardent and uninhibited. We see only her huge, clear and lively eyes. The same look as that of my friend, who will make his nest in her belly the following year, when she plays in The sisters-in-law at the Espace Cardin in Paris. The Linda Lauzon of Tremblay-Brassard’s creation, two daring youngsters who have the wind in their sails, is like them, like Monique Mercure, Rita Lafontaine, Pauline Martin, Denise Filiatrault, Danièle Lorain, Denise Morelle and the others with whom she shares the stage. She is made of dreams, ambition, convictions. The future will be bright. She senses it. Lover, actress, feminist, mother-to-be. It is all of life and more that she carries within her.
In a tribute he dedicated to her on his social networks, the theatre man Louis-Dominique Lavigne recalled Odette Gagnon’s career path, including her presence as creator of the hard-hitting Théâtre du Même Nom in the 1970s, her performances in Hello, there, hello And Tomorrow morning, Montreal awaits me, her dramaturgy – notably as one of the authors of The Witches’ Ship — or her involvement at the Centre des auteurs dramatiques (CEAD), where she was the first woman president, at the Association québécoise du jeune théâtre (AQJT) and at Théâtre Action chez les Franco-Ontarians.
I love it when François tells me about his mother’s presence with the editors of the defunct magazine. La vie en rose and his childhood memories, listening in the living room at Hélène Pedneault’s house… Also the time when, in a literature class at CEGEP, he discovered that his mother had participated in the famous Nuit de la poésie in 1970 by seeing her in an archive video. Music to my ears. It makes him laugh to see me admiring someone who unfortunately never had the career she was destined for.
Because at the dawn of her fifties, nothing is going well for Odette. Her mental health is going off the rails. Everything is going to hell. She is hospitalized for a while. They look for appropriate medication that would cure the creator. So that she can come back into the light. Her place is in the firmament, with the other stars that we love to see in the theater, on the screen, whose stories we want to read. With her son too. She moves from one health resource to another, until she enters a CHSLD in 2004. Surrounded by good care, François assured me, gratefully. Still, she will never go back on stage. Her texts will remain in her head. The bingo games with the other patients do not interest her much… François brings her books by the ton. It is one of her rare pleasures. Biographies for the most part. The lives of others to fill her own, interrupted.
While several of her peers of the same generation receive showers of praise upon their death, Odette, long absent from the radar, has rather disappeared into discretion. A slow descent that began when she should have been at the top of her art. In an era of pomp where glory, glitter and fame are desired – however ephemeral they may be – it seems desirable to me to remember the cruel fragility of successful trajectories, and of health, above all… Everything hangs by a thread. This is what François and I tell ourselves, very lucidly, when recalling the memory of his mother who was curious, reserved, relevant and innovative. A woman who would have had so much to teach us.
On Saturday, the family will receive condolences at a Montreal funeral home. Odette will shine again in the love of those who knew her. Talking about them, evoking their memory, is to make Odette and the other women interrupted in their beautiful momentum eternal.