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Personal Info

Birth date

1918-06-10 (107 Years)

Day of death

2015-04-30

Gender

Female

Known for

Acting

Place of birth

Paris, France

Also known as

Henriette Ragon
Chanteuse Patachou

Patachou

Biography

Henriette Ragon (10 June 1918 – 30 April 2015), better known as Patachou, was a French singer and actress. She was an Officier of the Légion d'honneur.

Born in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, Henriette Ragon began her working life as a typist, then a factory worker, a shoeseller and an antique dealer.

In 1948, with her husband Jean Billon she took over a cabaret-restaurant in Montmartre, called Patachou. (Their son Pierre Billon had some success as a singer in the 1970s and wrote J'ai oublié de vivre for Johnny Hallyday.) She began to sing in the bistro, and journalists began to call her Patachou after the name of her cabaret (pâte-à-choux means cream puff dough). Georges Brassens sang there, and together they sang the duet "Maman, papa". She was the first to interpret other songs he composed such as "Le bricoleur", "La chasse aux papillons", etc.

The evening she sang them for the first time, she suggested her audience stay to the end of the show and meet the writer of these songs, and Brassens went up on to the Patachou stage for the first time and sang Le Gorille and P..de toi. Sometimes she would collect half-ties (she would snip the neckties of customers reluctant to join in the singing and immediately staple them to the ceiling, a habit which has created a very original decor of the place - hundreds of neckties hanging above) – Thomas Dewey and Errol Flynn were among her victims.

Her first records were released in 1952. She appeared at the Bobino, a Montparnasse music-hall, toured in France and then further afield. From 1953 onwards, she could be seen on-stage at the Palladium, the Waldorf Astoria, and Carnegie Hall, and throughout the United States. From the beginning of the 1970s she toured Japan and Sweden where 'L'eternal Parigot', with her cheeky Parisian register, was popular.

Patachou was made Officier of the Légion d'honneur on 1 January 2009.

Patachou died on 30 April 2015 at the age of 96.

Source: Article "Patachou" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Filmography

Acting

2001Pierre or The Ambiguities (3 Episodes) as Margherite

2001Les Petites Mains as Marguerite

2001Belphegor, Phantom of the Louvre as Geneviève

2000Adventures of Félix as Mathilde Firmin

2000Actors as Blind old lady

1999Pola X as Marguerite

1996Hold-up en l'air as Emilie Sagglia

1996Tendre piège as Madeleine

1995Le Cœur étincelant as Unknown

1994Les Cordier, juge et flic (1 Episode) as Mrs. Lemoine

1993Open Season as Madame Cygne

1993Wild Target as Mme. Meynard

1990Les matins chagrins as Alice

1990Orages d'été, avis de tempête (9 Episodes) as Marthe

1990The Carpathian Mushroom as Madame Ambrogiano

1988The Man Who Lived at the Ritz as Unknown

1987Sacrée soirée (1 Episode) as Self

1987With Feeling as Unknown

1987La Rumba as Meyrals

1986Faubourg St Martin as Mme Coppercage

1984La Chance aux chansons (7 Episodes) as Self

1982L'Académie des 9 (1 Episode) as Self

1975Numéro un (3 Episodes) as Self

1975Système 2 (1 Episode) as Self

1972Midi trente (3 Episodes) as Self

1972Le Grand Échiquier (5 Episodes) as Self

1968À bout portant (1 Episode) as Self

1963Es spielt für Sie... (1 Episode) as Self

1962The Merv Griffin Show (1 Episode) as Self

1959Discorama (2 Episodes) as Self

1955French Cancan as Yvette Guilbert

1955Napoleon as Madame Sans-Gêne

1953Femmes de Paris as Self

1948The Ed Sullivan Show (8 Episodes) as Self