Damia (singer)

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Damia in 1920

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

1930

  • J'ai l'cafard
  • Boublitchki
  • C'est mon gigolo
  • Le grand frisé

1931

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

1937

1938

1939

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

Literature and source for this article

Audio sample

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

Commons : Damia (Marie-Louise Damien)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Francesco Rapazzini: Damia, une diva française , Paris 2010, p. 32 ff.
  2. ^ Weekly Voilà : La Grande Damia , Paris, July 2, 1937
  3. ↑ 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