Damia (singer)
Damia (born on 5. December 1889 in Paris as Marie-Louise Damien , died on the thirtieth January 1978 in La Celle-Saint-Cloud ) was a French singer and expressionistic actress. It had its greatest successes in the 1930s . In her chansons of realistic character, she mainly expressed tragic content.
Life
Her parents came from the Vosges . They worked in one of the regional weaving mills and also ran a modest farm. In the early 1880s they settled in Paris, where their father initially worked as a day laborer and their mother as a laundress. Later the father got a job in the administration of the arrondissement . Louise-Marie often spent her holidays on her grandparents' farm, but at the age of 15 she ran away from home and found a role as an extra at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris for seven francs a week. She later found work in a factory and offered herself as a model to the painters in Montmartre , but she refused to pose as a nude model . She soon managed to work at the Bal Tabarin cabaret theater for 20 sous a night. But the wages weren't enough to live on. She earned a little more at the La Cigale theater , where she sang with other girls between the individual numbers to bridge the gap. But this job also ended and she became temporarily homeless . After suspicion of prostitution in 1907, she was sent to a home for difficult-to-educate youths of the Salvation Army for a month , but was taken back by the family of a stage technician from the Châtelet Theater , whom she had known from earlier.
During that time she managed to attract the attention of the then husband of the famous singer Marguerite Boulc'h , Robert Hollard, known as Roberty , who gave her singing lessons and with whom she later entered into a liaison . After 1908 she appeared in the café concerts of various Parisian music establishments. These included well-known places such as the Pépinière-Théâtre or the Paris Alhambra . She played the leading role in a stage show by Félix Mayol .
The playwright Sacha Guitry claimed to have advised her to wear a skin-tight, black dress for her appearances, which traced her body silhouette and thus became an appearance of the singers of the time, which was also adopted by Édith Piaf and Juliette Gréco . Damia herself contradicted this representation in a radio interview and said that the actor Max Dearly gave her the idea of the dress. In addition to her concerts, she also played prominent roles in movies and in the theater.
In the period between the world wars , Damia was downright adored by the public, but after the occupation of France by the Germans, it was pushed into the background by younger idols. But she managed to return to the Parisian stages with great success in 1949 in a concert in the Salle Pleyel and a tour through Japan (1953). In 1954 she sang at the Olympia with Jacques Brel, who was then unknown .
Damia died on January 30, 1978 as a result of a fall in the Paris Métro . Her grave is on the Cimetière parisiennes de Pantin in the Seine-Saint-Denis department .
Aftermath
Damia was often referred to as "la tragédienne de la chanson" (the "tragic girl of the chansons") and was admired by writers of various genres such as Jean Cocteau , Robert Desnos and others. Her chansons could later be heard again in films by Jean Eustache , Aki Kaurismäki and Claude Chabrol .
Repertoire (selection)
1926
- Hantise
1927
- La rue de la joie
1928
- La chaîne
- Dis-moi
- Ploum ploum ploum
- La Venénosa
- L'Esclavage
1929
- Les Goélands (text and music by Jean Boyer )
- L'Orgue (text by Charles Cros )
1930
- J'ai l'cafard
- Boublitchki
- C'est mon gigolo
- Le grand frisé
1931
- Les Nocturnes
- Je voudrais que la nuit
- Complainte de Mackie ( The Moritat of Mackie Messer from the Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht )
- Pour un seul amour
- Ce n'est pas toujours drôle
- La plus belle chanson
- Amours de minuit
- On ne lutte pas contre l'amour (French version of the German song You can't live without love , sung by Marlene Dietrich )
- Il ne reste rien
- La chanson you passé
1932
- Mon matelot
- Les Inquiets
- De profundis
1933
- La Veuve
- Pour en arriver là
- Complainte (from the film La Tête d'un homme )
- J'ai bu
- La Garde de nuit à l'Yser
- La Suppliante
- Chansons gitanes - Chanson de route
- Chansons gitanes - Chanson à boire
- La chanson des flots
- Roule ta bosse
- Chantez pour moi, violons (French version of Play Fiddle, Play )
- Pluie
- Tout le jour, toute la nuit (French version of Night and day de Cole Porter )
1934
- La Guinguette a fermé ses volets
- En maison
- Toboggan
- Moi… j'm'ennuie (music by Wal-Berg )
1935
- La Mauvaise prière
- Mon phono chante
1936
- Gloomy Sunday ( Sombre Dimanche )
- C'est la guinguette
- Aux quatre coins de la banlieue (text by Michel Vaucaire )
- Aimez-vous les moules marinières? (Text by Henri Varna and Michel Vaucaire)
- Celui qui s'en va (text by Charles de Richter , music by Tiarko Richepin )
1937
- L'Étranger (music by Robert Juel and Marguerite Monnot )
1938
- Johnny Palmer (text by Christian Vebel )
- Personne (text and music Michel Emer )
- C'est dans un caboulot
- La Malédiction
1939
- Tout fout le camp (Text Raymond Asso )
1941
- Tourbillons d'automne
1942
- Mon amour vient de finir (text by Édith Piaf and music by Marguerite Monnot)
1943
- In ma solitude
1944
- Ma rue
Film rolls
- 1927: Napoléon (by Abel Gance )
- 1930: Tu m'oublieras ( Henri Diamant-Berger )
- 1931: Sola (Henri Diamant-Berger)
- 1932: La Tête d'un homme ( Julien Duvivier )
- 1937: Les Perles de la couronne ( Sacha Guitry and Christian-Jaque )
- 1956: The Hunchback of Notre Dame ( Notre-Dame de Paris , Jean Delannoy )
Literature and source for this article
- Francesco Rapazzini: Damia, une diva française . Editions Perrin, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-262-03403-0 .
Audio sample
- Damia sings her chanson in 1944 On danse à La Villette (on Youtube)
The text of this chanson, which was recorded in April 1944, alludes to the ban on going out and dancing that was imposed by the German occupation forces , which was circumvented in the La Villette district of Paris : Sous l'œil de l'agent de police / Deux ombres dans l'ombre se glissent / La porte s'entrouvre d'un bond / S'échappe un air d'accordéon ... ( Under the eyes of a police officer / two shadows slide through the shadows / the door briefly opens a crack / and the touch of an accordion escapes ... ).
Web links
- Terre de femmes website with information about Damia's version Sombre dimanche ( Gloomy Sunday ) from February 28, 1936
- Damia in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Caroline Hanotte: Damia on cineartistes.com (biography, French)
- Damia - Chansonette in black. Documentary by Carole Wrona. France 2015. ( Online on YouTube )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Francesco Rapazzini: Damia, une diva française , Paris 2010, p. 32 ff.
- ^ Weekly Voilà : La Grande Damia , Paris, July 2, 1937
- ↑ text
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Damia |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Damien, Maryse; Damien, Marise; Damien, Marie-Louise (real name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French singer and expressionist actress |
DATE OF BIRTH | December 5, 1889 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
DATE OF DEATH | January 30, 1978 |
Place of death | La Celle-Saint-Cloud |