"Why do you want to see me? I have nothing to sell… ”she told us over the phone. We had to insist that Queen Lear welcome us to her Provencal refuge, which she did not want to show. We had made an appointment at the cafe. Black mask on the face, dark glasses, equally black outfit, Amanda Lear arrives on foot. Scalded cat fears cold water. Fearing burglaries, which she has already paid the price, she asks us not to specify the location.
We are in the Alpilles regional park, near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where Van Gogh lived. A region of adoption for forty years for the singer and actress, and a pure coincidence. “At the time, we swore only by Saint-Tropez,” she says. I almost bought the house there from Brigitte Bardot who had changed her mind at the last moment. »Following this disappointment, she visits the corner from which she falls steeply. After a first house in Saint-Rémy, which she only kept "two or three years", she settled down in the heart of this village.
The sun is beating down, the mistral blows and the cicadas chirp as we follow her down a small street along a green wall of Virginia creeper. A pointed wooden door opens onto its lush green setting. "Do you have your jersey?" She laughs. To the right, a swimming pool, blue and pink parasols. "It's for friends, the pool," she says. I'm not on vacation, I live here year round. »We progress in a very wooded garden. Orange trees, lime trees and especially olive trees, aged.
Antique furniture
“Every time I did a gala or a movie, I bought myself a tree,” she continues. The great luxury is to call a nurseryman to ask for a 200-year-old olive tree, she laughs. He comes, makes a hole and pan, in the evening you have a drink under a bicentennial olive tree. Almost four decades, therefore, that she afforest this Eden from which she harvests the fruits, mainly olives. “I take them to the mill in Maussane, where Aznavour used to go. I am an olive grower, ”she insists. A few bottles of oil a year, “It's delicious to know that it comes from my garden. "
Between two boxwood hedges, an alley leads to the terrace in front of the house. One storey high, it is furnished with washed blue shutters and doors, in harmony with the earthy yellow of the cob on the facade. On the right, a plastic goat seems to emerge from a thicket. “A tribute to Fergie, my goat,” she breathes. Pearl necklaces, the resin beast seems to guard a small outside staircase that leads up to our hostess' room, the room she prefers.
"There is a little Romeo and Juliet side that I liked," she chuckles. I can receive a lover without the household knowing anything about it. We take a look at it, with his blessing. A four-poster bed on which a dummy ivy is rolled up, a headboard in the shape of a scallop. "In my bed, I am a pearl," she smiles.
“When I bought it was the village car park here, almost in ruins, I made a point of making it a little paradise. It was in the early 1980s. Since then, water has flowed under the bridges. From Avignon, very close. De la Sorgue, too, and those of L'Isle, a paradise for second-hand dealers. She found all her furniture there. "I like objects to have stories… Do you see me at Ikea?" "
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Colored walls, blue and yellow earthenware, an antique church candlestick, wrought iron lanterns, baskets on the kitchen ceiling, all tiled, paintings on the wall - we'll come back to it - old or even shabby furniture, it A Provençal bohemian atmosphere reigns here. We settle down under a vegetated arbor for a discussion with broken sticks, sweeping away years of celebrations, incredible encounters, special moments with Dali, of whom she was the muse, of Bowie, of whom she was in love, anecdotes of which it seems inexhaustible.
"I never wanted what happened to me, I wanted to paint"
“When I say I ran into Jimi Hendrix, they look at me like I'm Jurassic Park . She says she kicked him out of her house in London because her hen of the day had stolen her bathrobe. Do not push the tigress Amanda in the nettles. It's funny, abundant, spicy. On her furniture are pictures of her with the Stones, Elton John, Andy Warhol ...
“They say I'm a legend, what does that mean? she pretends to be annoyed. That I'm still alive Yes. It's because I'm a survivor, I experienced the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and I'm still here […] I've known extraordinary people, but I never wanted what happened to me, I wanted to paint. Who would she like to meet today? “The Pope, I love him very much, I would ask him to confess me. Is there a lot to say? "I suppose… In this profession we only think of our navel, we are monsters, showbiz people…"
We also talk about her future, in showbiz, precisely, which she does not really plan. She has plans that are hatching. Before the Covid crisis, a theater project was on track, "with Michel Fau", specifies Amanda Lear. Repelled. When do we see her on stage again? " Never. You'll have to beg me on my knees. What turns her off is the long commitment. She would of course leave on a more comfortable TV recording. On the cinema side, she appears in "Miss", by Ruben Alves, which will be released in September. And then she gets down to a new “posthumous” album, she likes to say.
"For the first time I wanted to take back French classics". Charles Trenet, in particular. "We have already shot two clips and recorded three titles, I have to be careful, I tend to choose songs a little sad, about nostalgia." Not really the retirement announced three years ago. “I'm an active retiree,” she smiles. Let's say that I make me pray a lot, the more you say no, the more we want you. Recently, Marc Almond, from the Soft Cell group, offered him a duet. "Nice proposal, but I was looked at his photo, he's 100 years old the guy!" She laughs at her pike.
With her little mirror close at hand, she regularly tidies up the hair that the wind immediately shakes up. "I'm not planning anything, I'm letting it come… Maybe tomorrow I'll get a call from Woody Allen, we don't know… I believe in fate. Or tomorrow I can catch the Covid and die. We believe her, a little, she who constantly surrounds her being and her life with a blur, necessarily artistic. Starting with his date of birth, never the same. Which could have played tricks on him. "I had put it in the alarm code, but as I change it all the time, I couldn't remember which one I had put, it was ringing constantly," she laughs.
"I have flowers in my head and no regrets"
Distributed, humor and humor, Amanda Lear is an entertainer. But not only: “People don't know me. They always imagine me on the red carpets (Editor's note: the red carpets) . I have a public image, so I give what they ask, I put on my sequins, show my stumps ... It's my business, but, I much prefer Amanda Lear who is here, quiet, who cooks, puts garlic everywhere, paints. "
Painting, a central art for her. She was at the Beaux-Arts before meeting Dali, whose style she didn't like, preferring Picasso or the impressionists to him… Van Gogh, too, whose letters she framed to her brother, Theo, found at a second-hand dealer. Her workshop, she installed it in the living room. On one side the TV, on the other the easel, color tubes and canvases, by the dozen, leaning against the walls. “During confinement I painted like crazy, it's my therapy,” she says.
“At first, I was more in ochres, burnt green, now I paint bright colors, straight from the tube, lemon yellow, electric blue. I love the colors, ”she slips. Among the paintings, women with blossoming hair. “I have flowers in my head and no regrets, especially no regrets. »Canvases that can also be admired on the walls. There is Sock, her one-eyed cat represented on a golden background with a lace ruff.
"If we are not optimistic, we do not live old"
A self-portrait, there, dating from 1981. We see her as a queen, however, a Renaissance strawberry, a microphone in her left hand, a world map under the right and her 33-rpm records in front of her. Still lifes, on deep blue. Doudou, the missing Siamese cat. She has had up to thirteen cats, many of them no longer there. She suspects neighborhood poisoning… “If I could live off my painting, no one would see me anymore. "Hidden, and happy, after being so exposed ... She" feasted "during confinement. “I was alone, I did the laundry, the dishes, I went from superstar to housekeeper, and I loved it. "
She says she is "less and less social", but advocates laughter as a health regime. Alone ? "I watch TV, my cats make me laugh… I admit that I force myself to see the glass half full, I have a rather pessimistic temperament and sometimes I force myself to say to myself: It's okay to go . If we are not optimistic, we do not live old ”.
The crisis led her to think about "emptiness, the uselessness of chasing success, money". The fact remains that "an old hut is expensive". “All my money goes there, my friends tell me it's too big, that I should sell. But I want to die here, she says. At worst, I will put her in life. »Does she want to be buried there? "No, burnt, direct". And the ashes? "We'll put them with those of the goat and my three Labradors at the bottom of the garden. "
Amanda Lear's summer top
1. “Jerusalema” by Master KG is obviously THE dance of summer in my opinion. "
2. “Summer 85”, François Ozon's film “for the play of young Benjamin Voisin, who bursts the screen. These are the new Amitiés Particulières , the novel of my father-in-law Roger Peyrefitte (Editor's note: adoptive father of Alain-Philippe Malagnac whom she married in Las Vegas) modernized. "
3. The surgical mask, now compulsory, "which will be the main protagonist of the summer of 2020. We will get used to it, like the Japanese, and we will buy less lipstick! "