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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZMIRIELLE(b Mirielle Hartuch, 30 Sep. '06, Paris; d there 29 Dec. '96) Actress, singer, songwriter; she virtually invented the modern French chanson. Her father was Polish, mother English; she studied the piano and became an actress, appearing in Hollywood films with Charles Boyer and Buster Keaton, singing and acting on stage in London and on Broadway, where she met George Gershwin. With lawyer Jean Nohain who wrote poems for children she wrote 'an American-style operetta' Fouchtra '28 which was published but not produced; the publisher Raoul Breton worked in a cabaret duo which performed 'Couch‚s dans le Foin' ('Lying In The Hay') '32 from the show: it became a hit and Mirielle went on to write about 600 songs. She transformed French music hall, where the songs had been either realistic and doomy or vulgar comedy; her songs combined lightness, wit, liberty and poetry. A tiny woman with a tiny voice and a tendency to sing sharp, of her diction, her wit and her skill as a singing actress Sacha Guitry said, 'She's lucky not to be handicapped by a great voice.' Founded Petit Conservatoire de la Chanson in rue de l'Universit‚ '54 and influenced tens of thousands of students; 'It is not enough to sing well,' she said; 'I teach them to live!' She retired '74 and refused to appear on stage for 20 years, but appeared in a video '91 and gave a series of concerts '95. She wrote hits for and/or influenced Maurice Chevalier, Fran‡oise Hardy, Yves Montand, Jacques Brel, indeed virtually everyone in French popular music; the great singer/songwriter Charles Trenet said, 'I was lucky to arrive at a time when, thanks to Mirielle and Jean Nohain ... a music-hall artiste [no longer] had to stand there and utter idiotic rhymes.' |