Juliette Greco

Juliette Gréco was born in Montpellier to a Corsican father and a mother active in the Résistance, in the Hérault département of southern France. She was raised by her maternal grandparents. Gréco also became involved in the Résistance, and was caught but not deported because of her young age. She moved to Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris in 1946 after her mother left the country for Indochina with the Navy. Gréco became a devotee of the bohemian fashion of some intellectuals of post-war France. She dressed generally in black and let her long, black hair hang free. A famous description of Gréco is that her voice "encompasses millions of poems".[cite this quote] She was known to many of the writers and artists working in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Boris Vian.[cite this quote] Gréco 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 became acquainted with Miles Davis and Jean Cocteau, even being given a role in Cocteau’s film ‘Orphee’ in 1949. During the same year, she began a new singing career with a number of well-known French writers writing lyrics – Raymond Queneau’s ‘Si Tu T’Imagines’ was one of her earliest songs to become popular. [1] American movie producer and studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, who was Gréco's paramour, cast her in several films from the late 1950s to early 1960s.[2] She has been married three times: to actor Philippe Lemaire (1953-1956; one daughter, Laurence-Marie Lemaire, b. 1954), actor Michel Piccoli (1966-1977), and pianist Gérard Jouannest (1988-).