Nicole Croisille, whose six-decade career spanned music, dance, film and theatre, was best known internationally for the soundtrack of the 1966 film A Man and a Woman – inscribing the refrain "chabadabada" into the pantheon of French song. "All I like is a good laugh," she said, as she continued to work well into her 80s.
Croisille died in Paris on Tuesday night, "following a long illness" her agent Jacques Metges announced on Wednesday.
The unforgettable voice on the film soundtrack of Claude Lelouch's A Man and a Woman, she won the prize for "most beautiful voice" in 1975.
She was also loved in France for other hits during the 1970s, including Telephone-moi , Parlez-moi de lui and Une femme avec toi .
"I have only sung love songs and I know what I have brought to people," she told Paris Match in 2017.
"She was the voice of my life, a friend, a confidante, a muse," Lelouch said on Wednesday. "She was a wonderful woman, behind the microphone and in life. She knew how to do everything! Singing, dancing, bouncing around all the time, an incredible sense of improvisation... I feel widowed."
Multi-talented
Croisille often said she had achieved everything she ever wanted in her career – hardly surprising given the breadth of her accomplishments.
Born in 1936, she was just eight when she began dancing on stage at the Paris Opera School. She would later join the company's corps de ballet.
In the mid-1950s, after auditioning for Marcel Marceau’s mime school, she joined him on a tour of the Americas. She discovered a passion for jazz while in Chicago and began singing in local clubs.
On her return to France, she immersed herself in the jazz scene of Paris’s Saint-Germain-des-Prés, performing in the city’s famed cellars.
She continued dancing, performing notably in Paris mes Amours – a revue led by Josephine Baker – and appearing in 1957 alongside Jean Marais in the musical L’Apprenti Fakir.
Chabadabada
Her recording career kicked off in the early 1960s, with a series of jazz-influenced singles and an album featuring a cover of Ray Charles’s Hallelujah I Love Her So.
However, she struggled to compete with the rise of the yé-yé pop movement and while she opened for Jacques Brel at the Olympia in Paris in 1961, she remained relatively unknown to the general public.
Passionate about American musicals, she returned to the United States in 1964 to perform as a lead showgirl, appearing in Broadway numbers adapted from the Folies Bergère.
1966 marked a turning point when she recorded the soundtrack of Un homme et une femme (A man and a woman) with singer-songwriter Pierre Barouh for Claude Lelouch’s eponymous Oscar-winning film. Composed by Francis Lai, the song with its breathy "chabadabada" refrain, became a global hit and was the first French single to be certified gold in the US.
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Chart success
Mainstream success came in the 1970s, after signing with Philips Records.
Collaborations with prominent lyricists like Pierre Delanoë and Claude Lemesle allowed her to develop a more contemporary chanson-pop style. She released a string of successful singles including Parlez-moi de lui, Une femme avec toi, Téléphone-moi and J’ai besoin de toi, j’ai besoin de lui . Her version of Le Blues du businessman, from the musical Starmania, was a radio hit in 1985.
Croisille performed to sold-out audiences at major French venues including the Olympia, the Bataclan and the Casino de Paris.
Despite embracing pop, she continued in jazz. In 1987, she worked alongside violinist Didier Lockwood and saxophonists Manu Dibango and Steve Grossman on the album Jazzille, culminating in a national tour with 180 concerts.
In 2008, she released the album Bossa d’hiver, inspired by her love of Brazilian music.
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'Time of my life'
Croisille was also an accomplished actress. She appeared in several of Claude Lelouch's films, including Les Uns et les Autres (1981), Il y a des jours… et des lunes (1990), and Les Misérables (1995), as well in numerous television productions. In 1992, she realised her dream, playing the lead role in the American musical Hello, Dolly!.
In 2006, two years after the death of fellow French artist Claude Nougaro, she paid tribute to him with the stage show and album Nougaro, le jazz et moi.
Croisille remained active on stage into her 80s.
After playing, in her own words, a "wanton old lady" in a play about the porn industry in 2018, she acted the role of ex-mistress of a rich antique dealer in Sacha Guitry's gritty comedy N'écoutez pas, Mesdames! in 2019.
"I'm having the time of my life! At my age, all I like is a good laugh", she told AFP just before her 83rd birthday.
