Despite celebrating her eightieth birthday last month, actress and singer Juliette Gréco remains the icon of the French anti-establishment, the Bohemian existentialist clique of café society. In Paris the Left Bank of the Seine and the Latin Quarter may no longer have the political impact they did during the violent demonstrations of the 60s and 70s, but Gréco continues to attract huge audiences and has even released a new album.
Her finest hour occurred more than a quarter of a century ago when in 1981 she unexpectedly accepted an invitation to perform in Chile during the era of its notorious breaches of human rights. On stage in the capital, Santiago, before an audience that included General Pinochet and most of his military council, Gréco suddenly switched midway through her concert from her enthusiastically applauded international hits to songs of the resistance banned by the junta. The applause became hesitant, then stopped, and finally the generals left, looking furious. As Gréco came off the stage, she was arrested by members of the Chilean special forces, hustled into a car, taken to the airport and put on the first plane out.
This was not her first time under arrest. In 1943 Gréco had been arrested in Paris by the Gestapo, suspected of helping Allied prisoners of war to escape. Her mother and elder sister, also placed under arrest, were sent to a labour camp in Germany but Juliette was reprieved at the last moment because she was only 16 at the time.
Alone and penniless on the streets of Paris, Greco was virtually adopted by the actress Hélène Duc and introduced to the exciting world of theatre. With the help of such distinguished literary figures as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, Juliette established herself as a singer in the legendary Bohemian night clubs, Le Boeuf sur Le Toit and Le Tabou.
In 1949 she met the great American jazz trumpet player, Miles Davis, then just 22. Gréco recalls what happened next. ‘We went out for dinner in a group, with people I didn't know. I didn't speak English, he didn't speak French. I haven't a clue how we managed. The miracle of love.’
Sadly this great love affair foundered because of the deep-seated colour prejudice that existed in the US at the time, with both white and black people vigorously opposed to mixed relationships. Davis was told his career would be ruined if he married Gréco, and Juliette herself still recalls the glacial attitude of the staff when she invited Davis to dinner in her suite at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.
Gréco’s own career nonetheless flourished, first as a Hollywood actress, helped by a heady if short-lived affair with the famous director, Zarryl Danuck. However, it is as a singer that Gréco will be most fondly remembered, able to command huge outdoor audiences. On one such international tour the average attendance was more than 60,000. Although not one for reminiscences – she claims not to understand the meaning of the word ‘nostalgia’ – she does recall one concert with particular enthusiasm. In June 1997 she was invited to the annual Photography Festival in Arles. Gréco gave what was seen as the performance of a lifetime, singing in the Roman amphitheatre while huge black-and-white photos spanning her prodigious career were projected onto the ruins behind her.
