International Courant
Jean-Paul Vignon, the romantic French vocalist and actor who impressed audiences on each side of the Atlantic throughout an eight-decade profession, died March 22 of liver most cancers in Beverly Hills, his household introduced. He was 89.
Performing a repertoire of up to date pop and American requirements, Vignon debuted within the US in 1963 on the well-known New York supper membership The Blue Angel, the place he opened for stand-up comedian Woody Allen.
Ed Sullivan would quickly showcase him on his Sunday evening CBS selection present in eight appearances — together with one by which he sang a duet with younger Liza Minnelli — and he turned a daily visitor on Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin’s packages.
Signed to Columbia Data, Vignon launched his first US album, As a result of I Love You, in 1964. Three years later, he had a supporting position reverse William Holden and Cliff Robertson within the World Conflict II movie The Satan’s Brigade.
In a 1994 profile within the Los Angeles Instances, reporter Robert Koehler famous, “Vignon fulfilled the American picture of the romantic, singing Frenchman. Sarcastically, fairly than examine his voice to such famend Gallic crooners as Maurice Chevalier and Gilbert Bécaud, Vignon says that he has a Bobby Darin form of voice, in a position to sing quick and passionate or light and sluggish.”
He continued to play a number of the prime rooms in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and different main cities into the early Nineteen Seventies, and in ’74 he recorded a single, “You,” with Farrah Fawcett, then a comparatively unknown younger actress and mannequin.
Altering viewers tastes stalled his profession, however he did host a Canadian TV present produced by Dick Clark referred to as The Sensuous Man, which ended every week with him reclining in a bath. And for a Playgirl centerfold in 1973, he sported a sweater as soon as worn in a well-known picture shoot by Marilyn Monroe and little else.
Born on Jan. 30, 1935, within the port metropolis of Dire-Daou within the colonial territory of French Somaliland (later referred to as Djibouti), Vignon was schooled in Avignon, France. He briefly studied medication in Marseille and legislation on the Sorbonne in Paris however determined to pursue music full time.
He was in his early 20s when, on the advice of Belgian singer-actor Jacques Brel, he secured a prestigious cabaret job in Paris that will launch his profession.
The baritone debuted in entrance of the cameras because the star of the 1956 characteristic Les Promesses Dangereuses, then adopted with a efficiency reverse Francoise Arnoul within the romantic drama Asphalte (1959).
In the meantime, he had signed as a vocalist with France’s Disques Vogue, which aimed to develop him as an artist alongside the traces of such balladeers as Charles Trenet (his idol), Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour. His first album was 1957’s autobiographical Djibouti.
His profession in France started to lag after he served 17 months of obligatory navy service, however after opening for Edith Piaf and acting on board the French liner Liberté earlier than such ocean-going celebrities as Ernie Kovacs, Edie Adams and Carol Burnett, he determined to attempt his luck within the States.
As he wrote in his 2018 memoir, From Ethiopia to Utopia, “My adventurous spirit was telling me, ‘Marco Polo didn’t hesitate to go to China, Henry Morton Stanley didn’t hesitate to presume exploring Central Africa and discover Dr. Livingston, Christopher Columbus didn’t hesitate to sail west to find America … so it’s your flip to find the USA.'”
After years of profession ebbs and flows, he returned to the LA cabaret scene in 1993, inspired by such pop vocalists as Harry Connick Jr., Michael Feinstein and Tony Bennett and the smash success of “Unforgettable,” which paired the late Nat King Cole and his daughter Natalie. He would stay lively into his 80s with appearances at Feinstein’s at Vitello’s and the Catalina Jazz Membership.
Alongside the best way, he would additionally seem on such exhibits as The Rockford Information, Resort, Falcon Crest, LA Legislation, Columbo, Days of Our Lives and Gilmore Ladies; voice one of many Merry Males in Shrek (2001); and narrate the romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer season (2009).
In the meantime, his firm, Côte d’Azur Productions, offered French audiences with translations and overdubs of Scarface and different American movies.
Survivors embody his longtime companion, Suzie Summers; daughters Marguerite Vignon Gaul (from his marriage to late American actress Brigid Bazlen) and Lucy Brank; and granddaughters Leah and Hannah.
Fashionable French Vocalist and Actor Was 89
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