Chez Régine
Chez Regine was a nightclub in Paris . The disco, founded in 1958, quickly established itself as a meeting point for the Parisian scene, with well-known regulars including Jean-Paul Belmondo , Alain Delon , the Nouvelle Vague , Brigitte Bardot , Salvador Dalí and Georges Pompidou . Chez Regine founded the style pattern of a small, exclusive disco where stars and artists could meet and let go. It influenced the development of pop music in Europe, for example the twist spread through Chez Regine in the rest of the continent.
The owner and founder Regine Zylberberg had worked in a first well-known disco, Whiskey a Go-Go , and temporarily managed the second location on her own. In the early 1950s, the world's first discos appeared in Paris and quickly established themselves as a meeting place for jet sets. Regine was so successful as the operator of Whiskey a Go-Go that she managed to get a loan from the Rothschilds for her own club, the Chez Regine. Already equipped with a name in the scene, she opened the club in the first month at 10:30 pm to immediately put a "full" sign for the door and reject potential guests, while loud music and the voices of Regine inside and their friends came out of the room. When she actually opened Chez Regine after four weeks, the disco was packed. At that time it was decorated like a square in a park, as Regine had stolen trees and benches from the nearby Bois de Boulogne for lack of money .
In Chez Regine the legend danced for the first time people outside of the United States the twist , as in 1961, the ensemble of West Side Story at Chez Regine spent the night and the Europeans present vorführte the twist. Regine then ordered all available twist records from the USA and the dance established itself in Europe via the Paris scene. The twist, in turn, largely sealed the end of the couples dance in the disco and introduced a dance style that could also be danced individually and that required significantly less space than the Foxtrot moving across the dance floor . Since she refused to teach the Duke of Windsor (later Edward VIII ) the twist outside of Chez Regine in a phone call , he too became a regular. The guests from this period report that the same people danced every night, Regine cooked spaghetti at three at night and finally brought breakfast. People who mostly danced naked on the counter were a common sight. Guy Letellier , later editor-in-chief of France Soir , compared the mood at Regine at that time with hindsight to a centrifuge that people simply held onto.
On the other hand, stories from May 1968 have been passed down of how one evening Regine and guests such as Dior designer Mark Bohan and the heir and later journalist Taki Theodororacopoulos spent the night with champagne and dancing while right outside the door on Boulevard du Montparnasse in the Sixth Arrondissement the students fought bitter tear gas battles with the police. In the 1970s she opened a Chez Regine in New York City , which was successful and motivated Regine to other clubs. In the 1980s, she finally established a total of 25 clubs in Europe, North and South America and Asia, which adhered to the concept of strict exclusivity.
Remarks
- ^ Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton: Last night a dj saved my life: the history of the disc jockey Grove Press, 2000 ISBN 0802136885 p. 50
- ^ A b c Peter Shapiro: Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco Macmillan, 2006 ISBN 0865479526 pp. 18-19
- ^ A b c Julie Baumgold: The Exotic Merchant of the Night in: New York Magazine March 21, 1977 pp. 37–45
- ^ A b Hugh Schofield: No holding back French disco diva BBC, October 24, 2005