Lily Lian, considered the last street singer in Paris, friend of Maurice Chevalier, died Sunday at Ivry hospital (Val-de-Marne), her godson Michaël Gautier announced to AFP. "Lily Paname" had been one of her record hits in the 1950s and 1960s. She had been immortalized in a square, a megaphone in her hand, in two famous shots of Robert Doisneau for his series illustrating small trades. Parisians.
Born on May 1, 1917, she had started by singing the popular repertoire of her childhood before becoming a recognized street singer in the thirties: a fluctuating career, which was to make her meet Edith Piaf, Tino Rossi, Maurice Chevalier, Yves Montand especially. Obliged to retrain after the war, due to the inexorable decline of her profession competed by the radio and the microgroove, she had not really managed to establish herself as a traditional singer.
Muse of the composer and actor Vincent Scotto, Lily Lian had published her memoirs in 1981: Lady Paname, Memoirs of the last singer on the streets . She was often invited by host Pascal Sevran, whom she had helped at the start of her career on her show "La Chance aux chansons".