Juliette Gr'eco

French singer and actress (born February 7th, 1927, Montpellier, France; died September 23rd, 2020, Ramatuelle, France) Juliette Gr'eco was born to a Corsican father and a mother active in the R'esistance, in the H'erault d'epartement of southern France. She was raised by her maternal grandparents. Gr'eco also became involved in the R'esistance, and was caught but not deported because of her young age. She moved to Saint-Germain-des-Pr'es in Paris in 1946 after her mother left the country for Indochina with the French Navy. Gr'eco came to be one of the stars of the bohemian “in” crowd of post-war France. She embodied the disenchantment and poverty of the French intellectuals following World War II. Gr'eco dressed all in black and let her long, black hair hang free. A famous description of Gr'eco is that her voice “encompasses millions of poems”. She was an inspiration to many of the writers and artists working in Saint-Germain-des-Pr'es, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Boris Vian. Some of these artists would write songs for her to sing. Gr'eco famously spent the post liberation years frequenting the Saint Germain cafes, immersing herself in political and philosophical Bohemian culture. As a regular figure at legendary music and poetry venues like Le Tabou on Rue Dauphine, Greco rubbed shoulders with Miles Davis and Jean Cocteau, even landing a role in Cocteau’s film ‘Orphee’ in 1949. In the same year, she embarked on a new singing career with a number of top French writers penning lyrics – Raymond Queneau’s ‘Si tu t’imagines’ was one of her earliest hits. A protege and companion of studio head Darryl F. Zanuck in the 1950s, she fell in love with and almost married musician Miles Davis when he visited Paris in 1949. Between 1953 and 1956 she was married to actor Philippe Lemaire with whom she had a daughter, Laurence Lemaire. Later married to French actor Michel Piccoli (1966–1977) then to French pianist [a455296] since 1988.