Symbol of the existentialist period and the artistic ferment of post-war Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Juliette Gréco embodied at the same time a certain image of French song, ambitious, demanding, while remaining popular in the most noble of the term.
Magnificent interpreter of great poets - Mac Orlan, Sartre, Queneau, Brassens, Brel or Ferré… - whom she served with this particular phrasing, she was one of the rare artists to always quote her authors on stage.
"I think I am a privileged author since she sang to me"
, confessed Serge Gainsbourg, of which Juliette Gréco had notably recorded
La Javanaise
. There is not an author worthy of the name, or at least having a little outfit literary, who did not wish to write for her.
The stage is where the truth takes shape, where it comes alive
Juliette Greco
Actress, moving, a bit mannered, she could also take on the demeanor of a greedy little girl to share with the public her passion for the song - even if, in her beginnings, she rather dreamed of being an actress.
A passion that drove her to stay tuned to the new generation with whom she worked on albums like
Love Each Other or Fade Out
or the symbolic
I remember everything.
Because if Gréco has never hidden her happiness at having rubbed shoulders with great painters, writers and musicians, personifying the famous left bank spirit, she did not cultivate nostalgia.
With Abd Al Malik, at the Ramatuelle Festival, in 2009. / Bruneau Cyril / ABACA
Non-conformist and rebel against all constraints, Juliette Gréco refused to remain frozen in time.
A story no doubt of giving Guy Béart a nice thumbs up, she sang
Il ya plus après in Saint-Germain-des-Prés
.
Thus, the unforgettable performer of
Feuilles mortes
and
Jolie Môme
has slipped without a hitch into the words and melodies of the younger generations, Miossec, Olivia Ruiz, Adrienne Pauly, Marie Nimier, Benjamin Biolay or Abd Al Malik.
An approach that the singer saw as obvious:
“It was I who called on them.
I have never done anything else and I found the same happiness as with Gainsbourg, Ferré or Béart.
I received 1000 Undress me and 500 Dead leaves ... But less good.
They wrote me something else.
Everything is original and beautiful… ”
And the singer is still correct!
These words, they had made them in 2004, when she was preparing for a series of concerts at the Olympia.
> READ ALSO - Juliette Gréco: “I thought I would die young, it was a failure!
The scene, Juliette Gréco felt like a fish in water.
"This is where the truth takes its form, where it becomes alive", said the one who in nearly 70 years of career, knew the greatest theaters of France and the world.
Her artistic career began at the end of the 1930s. Juliette Gréco, born in Montpellier on February 7, 1927, raised in Bordeaux then in Paris, became a little rat at the Opera.
She is already illustrated there by her free spirit and a touch of rebellion.
The teenager is gifted.
From then on, she knew that she would devote her life to the world of entertainment.
But the war decides otherwise.
Juliette Gréco at the Fête de l'Humanité, in La Courneuve, in 2015. / Poree Audrey / ABACA
During this period, she showed extraordinary courage.
Her mother and sister are deported.
She escapes hell, because of her young age.
She was nevertheless imprisoned in Fresnes.
His temperament remains the same.
In front of the enemy, it faces.
She does not hesitate, for example, to pounce on a member of the Gestapo who had just hit her during an interrogation.
She is only a teenager.
An attitude which legitimately earned him the admiration of all.
"She embodies a France that I love", underlined Benjamin Biolay.
In her memoirs,
Je suis fait comme ça
(Flammarion), she unveiled her various wounds with touching sincerity.
Including his complicated relationship with his mother: “All my childhood I sought his attention;
she never saw me.
It was a one-sided love, ”she confided.
This force of nature also had its cracks.
“His hands are so wet with stage fright that the crystal glass slips and breaks on the floor of the living room in the rue de Verneuil.
He is pale.
I try to reassure him.
His eyes shine too bright ”
Juliette Gréco recounts her meeting with Serge Gainsbourg in 1958
Simone Signoret and Juliette Greco in London.
/ PA Photos / ABACA
Freed from her sinister jail in 1942, Juliette Gréco resumed her artistic activities.
It is in the theater that it will henceforth impose itself.
She made a name for herself in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
His influence is growing.
She meets artists like Boris Vian.
But it was at the instigation of Jean-Paul Sartre that she began her career as an interpreter.
The philosopher entrusts him with a text.
“Do you want to sing, Greco?” He asked her.
"It's not my intention," she replied.
Finally, she nods.
Their collaboration continues.
His repertoire is enriched.
Gréco is definitely launched.
In France, of course, but also abroad where she toured extensively.
She quickly becomes a regular at the Olympia, while not forgetting her first love: comedy.
Complete artist, uninhibited and free woman
In the 1960s, she appeared to the public as a complete artist.
At that time, she rubbed shoulders with all the big names in French song: Gainsbourg, Brassens or Béart.
She meets the first in 1958. Offers him a whiskey.
The exchange is unexpected.
“His hands are so wet with stage fright that the crystal glass slips and breaks on the floor of the living room in the rue de Verneuil.
He is pale.
I try to reassure him.
Her eyes shine too bright, ”said Juliette Gréco.
She admires them.
They pay him back.
> READ ALSO - That night between Gainsbourg and Gréco which saw the birth of
La Javanaise
She connects the tubes.
The title
Undress me
(1968), where the uninhibited woman asserts her power, is subtly erotic.
The song marks the spirits.
He hasn't aged a bit.
During the following decade, she proved to be prolific by chaining the albums:
Face to Face, Juliette Gréco sings Maurice Fanon, Je vous attends, Gréco
... She never loses her freedom.
Neither at work nor in love.
“I chose to love who I want when I want,” she wrote.
As a performer, she published fewer albums in the 1980s and 1990s. Despite everything, she remains a key figure in song.
In 1984, she became a knight of the Legion of Honor.
Since the 2000s, she has been adored.
Not just by the people of the left, from which she came.
Its trajectory commands respect.
Its longevity too.
She delivers quality albums while remaining true to her style.
In 2012, it's
C'est se travers et c'est beau,
a publication dedicated to the bridges of Paris.
Many artists participate in the adventure, such as Marc Lavoine who sings with her on the wonderful track
Alone with you.
“Alone”, Juliette Gréco has never been.
You should have heard the ovation reserved for him by his most fervent admirers on the occasion of his 85th birthday at the Olympia.
A last tour with her husband Gérard Jouannest at the piano In 2013, her last album,
Gréco chante Brel, appeared.
Then at 88, Juliette Gréco announces a farewell tour entitled
Merci.
"I want to stop before I feel sorry," she explains.
The singing tour, planned over more than a year, should take her to all the cities that marked her immense career, which began in 1949. But in 2016, the singer suffered a stroke, from which she was slowly recovering since.
She hasn't had the opportunity to go back on stage since.
But her last "thanks", performed with her husband Gérard Jouannest on the piano, will resonate in memories for a long time to come.
"Thank you for the poetry, the wind, the life".