Genevieve (singer)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Geneviève
Pixie de Paris
[record sleeve]
Photo collage

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

Genevieve ( spelled without an accent in the United States , (pronounced: "john-vee-ev"), French : Geneviève (pronounced: ʒən.vjɛːv ); real name Ginette Marguerite Auger , born April 17, 1920 in Paris , died on March 14, 2004 in Venice, Los Angeles ), was a French - American chansonnière and comedic actress who gained prominence in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s through starring in musicals and television shows .

Artistic beginnings in France

Ginette Marguerite Auger was the first child of the successful building contractor Edouard Roger Auger and his wife Marthe Auger. She went to school in Versailles and Tunisia . In 1949, she received a sum of around 4,000 US dollars from her father , with which she opened a small establishment called “Chez Geneviève” in Montmartre on Place du Tertre , in which she ran the kitchen herself and welcomed guests upon request entertained with song. The then unknown chansonniers Charles Aznavour and Jacques Brel also performed there and the hotelier Conrad Hilton was a regular guest.

Career in the United States

In “Chez Geneviève” she was discovered as a talented singer by the American artist agent Barron Polan (1914–1986). In the spring of 1954 Genevieve gave up her establishment and went to New York .

Over the years, she received because of her boyish petite figure, the big, dark eyes and her red-brown short hair cut the nickname "Pixie from Paris", also called "Pixie de Paris" and rare "Parisian Pixie".

Musicals and singing roles

In September 1954, Genevieve had a vocal role alongside Betty Hutton in the television musical Satins and Spurs and in the fall she received positive attention as "Parisian import ... with her enchanting Gallic songs" with performances in the Persian Room of the Plaza Hotel, which is intended for music events .

From 1959 she played and sang the role of "La Môme Pistache" in Cole Porter's musical Can-Can during a tour of the major cities of the United States, including New York (1962).

She performed in other music events in New York and toured internationally, singing in front of political greats at the time such as the Spanish dictator Franco and the Egyptian king Faruq .

In the early 1960s she toured as a solo entertainer with the program An Evening with Genevieve .

Television entertainment

In addition to her appearances as a singer, she became particularly known from 1957 onwards for her appearances on the Tonight Show , in which the then host Jack Paar recognized her comedic talent and therefore often used her. In 1958, the Tonight Show was so popular that it was renamed The Jack Paar Show . Genevieve's television personality included her bumpy American English with a very heavy French accent , which was a running gag of the Tonight Show . Genevieve had been accused of using her accent only for show and actually being from Brooklyn, New York , but on the television guessing program What’s My Line? she assured her that her accent was authentic and not played (see video).

For five years, until 1962, Genevieve made regular appearances on The Jack Couple Show . She sang occasionally, but was the couple's conversation partner more and more often. Her role was the cheerful naive, while Jack Paar formed her opposite pole and repeatedly challenged and teased her. Her future husband, Ted Mills, recalled that, for example, the couple could make the audience laugh by asking Genevieve to read aloud baseball results. One of the special events of the Jack Paar Show was Genevieve's spontaneous idea to cut the hair of the then very famous burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee - a multiple guest on the show - in front of the camera. At first Lee thought it was a joke and played along until she saw her hair fall to the floor.

After her marriage to Ted Mills in 1960, Genevieve slowly withdrew from show business over the next few years , but still appeared occasionally, such as on The Merv Griffin Show . Her last appearance as an actress was in 1980 in three episodes of the television miniseries Scruples in the role of "Lilianne de Vertdulac".

Anecdotes

There are anecdotal explanations of events in Genevieve's life that have been repeated in variants and cannot be fundamentally verified. They are listed as part of Genevieve's image:

  • Origin of her name: The priest who baptized her insisted on " Geneviève ", since "Ginette" was only the diminutive of this name and church rules required that under a child's first name there must be at least one name of a saint.
  • Beginning of comedic appearances on the Today Show : Genevieve was hired to sing for the first few weeks. One evening she suffered from feverish flu , sang but forgot half of the lyrics, so that she cried behind the stage because she was afraid of being fired. Jack Paar knew that Genevieve spoke very broken English, but he built the situation into the show and told the audience that "he would take care of the little French girl and her fever". Someone brought Genevieve a glass of warm (buttered) rum. Since alcohol was not allowed to be drunk on television, Paar passed it off as "tea" - and while she was drinking, Paar engaged her in a conversation with the her familiar chunk of English words made the audience laugh. Genevieve later commented, "I realized I was getting drunk and saying weird things."

Private life

In 1960 she married the writer, director and producer Ted Mills, who had three children - Hilary, Alley and Tony, from their first marriage to Joan (Paterson) Mills - into the marriage. In the early 1960s, after finishing their appearances on television, the couple moved first to France, but later again to the United States in Washington, DC , where Ted Mills worked partly under C. Jackson Grayson in administration under the Nixon government . After Mill's employment ended, the couple moved to East Hampton , where they lived for two decades.

Tony Mills passed away in August 2003. Genevieve died a year later at the age of 83 of complications from a stroke .

Web links

literature

  • André Roussard: Dictionnaire illustré des Lieux à Montmatre , Éditions et Galerie A. Roussard (2001), ISBN 978-2951360112

Comments and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Dennis McLellan: Genevieve, 83; French Singer Won TV Viewers , Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2004; accessed on November 28, 2015.
  2. ↑ a b Christopher Lehmann-Haupt: Geneviève, 83, French Singer Who Mutilated English on TV , New York Times, March 17, 2004; accessed on November 27, 2015.
  3. ↑ Cosmopolitan . Schlicht & Field, 1961, p. 16.
  4. ↑ Gilles Schlesser: Le cabaret "rive gauche" . Archipel, October 25, 2006, ISBN 978-2-8098-1315-9 , p. 358.
  5. ↑ Some sources call it a café , others call it a cabaret or night club .
  6. ^ A b Jacques VASSAL: Jacques Brel, vivre debout . Place Des Editeurs, October 17, 2013, ISBN 978-2-258-10740-3 , p. 51.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Genevieve, of Jack Paar's show, dies at 83 , Associated Press, March 17, 2004; accessed on January 7, 2016.
  8. ↑ Jet Age Airlanes . Ayre Publishing Company, 1961, pp. Ix. , regarding an appearance at the Waldorf Astoria.
  9. ^ Parisian Pixie Performs at the Pabst .
  10. ↑ Free translation, for example: "little elves from Paris".
  11. ^ Louis Sobol: New York Calvalcade , Desert Sun, No. 21, Nov. 1, 1954; accessed on January 22, 2016.
  12. ^ Nielsen Business Media, Inc .: Billboard . Nielsen Business Media, Inc., June 15, 1959, p. 18, ISSN  0006-2510 .
  13. ^ Dan Dietz: The Complete Book of 1960s Broadway Musicals . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, April 10, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4422-3072-9 , p. 125.
  14. ^ Dramatics . International Thespian Society, 1962, p. 26.
  15. ^ Sydney Carter: Obituary Genevieve (performer) , Washington Post, March 19, 2004; Retrieved December 18, 2015.
  16. ↑ Jack Paar Show, Season 1
  17. ↑ It was referred to as mangled English .
  18. ↑ Cleveland Amory: Celebrity Register: An Irreverent Compendium of American Quotable Notables . Harper & Row, 1960, p. 287.
  19. ^ Jack Paar Show Celebrates First Anniversary Tuesday , Niagara Falls Gazette July 27, 1958, T-7; accessed on January 12, 2016.
  20. ↑ Marlene Cimon (Los Angeles Times): Saucy International Celebrity - French comedienne Genevieve Bows Out from Entertainment , Sarasota Herald Tribune, March 11, 1975; accessed on January 9, 2016.
  21. ^ Joan Paterson Kerr, Editor and Author, 75 , New York Times, Nov. 22, 1996; Retrieved January 6, 2006.
  22. ^ Engineering news record . McGraw-Hill, 1972, p. 7.
personal data
SURNAME Genevieve
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Genevieve; Auger, Ginette Marguerite
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French singer and actress
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 2004
Place of death Venice, Los Angeles