Colette Renard

Born Colette Lucie Raget on 1 November 1924 in Ermont, Seine-et-Oise, France, she passed away on 6 October 2010 in Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, France. Classical cello training preceded a series of non-musical positions that included serving as administrative secretary to orchestra leader Raymond Legrand, her eventual husband. Singing soon followed, and in 1956 she took the central role in the original staging of Irma La Douce at Paris’s Theatre Gramont. That character remained in her schedule through the rest of the 1950s and reappeared regularly in subsequent decades, while the songs of Alexandre Breffort and Marguerite Monnot settled into her regular repertoire. She developed into a widely followed recording and concert performer whose career stayed active and well received through the late 1990s; she additionally recorded traditional French songs collected and adapted by Guy Breton.

Film work began for Renard in the late 1950s with appearances in Le Dos au Mur (released in the US as Back to the Wall), Business (1960) and Clodo (1970). Television credits encompassed Les Dossiers de Me Robineau: Les Cagnards (1972), Un Grand Amour de Balzac and La Vie Rêvée de Vincent Scotto (both 1973), Mon Petit Âne, Ma Mère (1982), Maigret et la Princesse (2003), Plus Belle la Vie (2004) and Le Triporteur de Belleville (2005). She also surfaced as herself in television and film projects, among them Oscar Thiffault (1987). Her autobiography appeared in 1998. Colette Renard died of cancer at the age of 85 on 6 October 2010 in Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, France.