Biography
Born Anna Betoulinski on 30 October 1917 in St. Petersburg, Russia, the future performer died on 15 February 2006 in Palmer, Alaska, USA. Her father’s execution during the Russian Revolution prompted the family’s flight to France when she was one year old. Drawn to music, she trained in both singing and dance, and while still a young teenager performed with a ballet troupe in Monte Carlo. By her late teens she had relocated to Paris, where she appeared in nightclubs, frequently introducing original material she had written herself. It was in the French capital that she first used her stage name. After marrying a Dutchman she moved to London in 1940 and soon forged close ties with the Free French. A composition for which she supplied the music and Russian lyrics, “La Complainte Du Partisan,” was embraced by the Resistance. Fellow Resistance member Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie, then also based in London, championed the piece; retitled “Chant Des Partisans,” it was promoted as a substitute for the banned “Marseilles.” The song quickly became an anthem of the movement, and in the immediate postwar period it was briefly considered for adoption as France’s national anthem. Early credits listed Marly and d’Astier as composer and lyricist, but later attributions named Joseph Kessel and Maurice Druon, who produced a French translation. Toward the end of the conflict Marly enlisted with the British Entertainments National Service Association and toured Allied bases across Europe.
With her second husband, another Russian, she left Europe after the war for South America before settling in the United States, eventually taking American citizenship and making her home in Alaska. Leonard Cohen included a version of “Chant Des Partisans” on Songs From A Room, crediting Marly as composer and Hy Zaret as the author of the English lyrics he performed. In 1985 the French government appointed Marly a Chevalier de La Légion d’Honneur in acknowledgment of the song’s wartime significance.
With her second husband, another Russian, she left Europe after the war for South America before settling in the United States, eventually taking American citizenship and making her home in Alaska. Leonard Cohen included a version of “Chant Des Partisans” on Songs From A Room, crediting Marly as composer and Hy Zaret as the author of the English lyrics he performed. In 1985 the French government appointed Marly a Chevalier de La Légion d’Honneur in acknowledgment of the song’s wartime significance.