REGINA. The queen of the night, Régine, died on Sunday May 1, 2022. Singer, actress and businesswoman, she was 92 years old.
[Mis à jour le 09 mai 2022 à 08h12] The undisputed queen of Parisian nightlife is no more. Singer and actress Régine died on Sunday May 1, her family announced in a press release sent to AFP. She was 92 years old. “Régine left us peacefully on May 1 at 11 a.m.” in Paris, her granddaughter, Daphné Rotcajg, wrote to AFP. The funeral takes place this Monday, May 9 at 10 a.m., at the crematorium of the Père-Lachaise cemetery, Salle de la Coupole, in Paris, added the same source.
The little papers, The big Zoa, Women are fagot, Open your mouth, close your eyes… Régine will have offered to the French song some of its great classics… irreverent. Since the announcement of his death, tributes to the artist rain on social networks. Thousands of anonymous people, but also personalities like Pierre Palmade, Jane Birkin or Line Renaud salute the memory of “the night queen”. Emmanuel Macron pays tribute to this artist with “a thousand nicknames”.
Since the announcement of his death, tributes to the artist rain on social networks. Starting with that of his close friend, comedian Pierre Palmade. “The queen of the night is leaving: closure due to a long and great career. Leaving with her disco ball and her warm and reassuring banter”, she “had made dance for more than 30 years in her nightclubs the stars around the world,” he wrote in a text sent to AFP. Her first name has thus become “the emblem of crazy nights until dawn, herself dancing on the floor until closing time”, it is added.
Another longtime companion, Jane Birkin, also expressed her sadness, in the columns of Le Parisien. “At home, it was always open for friends. She was really a human person with a big heart. We sang together for undocumented migrants because, as soon as she could put herself at the service of “a cause, she was doing it. I knew she was sick, but she’s one of those people whose death you can’t imagine. She had such a taste for partying and living. She was brilliant”, says the singer.
Regina is gone. Our paths have crossed a thousand times. La Nuit is an orphan, she has lost her Queen. I extend my condolences to his family and loved ones. Line #regine pic.twitter.com/UjXixA0lkb
— Line Renaud (@linerenaud) May 1, 2022
For her part, the former magazine leader Line Renaud wrote on Twitter: “Régine is gone. Our paths have crossed a thousand times. La Nuit is an orphan, she has lost her Queen. I send all my condolences to her family and loved ones.” On Monday May 2, the Head of State Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to “The queen of the night, the Grande Zoa, the Fréhel de Montparnasse.” “After decades of lighting up the night, Régine passed away yesterday, leaving us tunes to hum and a certain art of living,” wrote the President of the Republic in a press release.
With Brigitte Macron, they “greet a great figure of Parisian nightlife and French song” and “address to his family, to all those who danced ‘at Régine’, to all the French people who like to sing his songs, their condolences moved.”
“Gainsbourg’s little papers or Frédéric Botton’s La grande Zoa, but also Barbara, Sagan, Renaud, Marc Lavoine or even Serge Lama, all were inspired by the authenticity of this little Jewess hidden during the war”, underlines Pierre Palmade in his text sent to AFP on the disappearance of the singer, summarizing the incredible life of Régine.
During her career, which began in the 1950s, Régine owned up to 22 clubs that bore her first name around the world, starting with the mythical “Chez Régine”, near the Champs-Elysées. A businesswoman, she was also a known and recognized singer, notably thanks to successes like The big Zoa, AzzurroLare little papers Where Patchouli Chinchilla.
Régine has also appeared in the cinema, in a dozen films, such as killing game by Alain Jessúa, robert and robert of Claude Lelouch Where Crooked cops by Claude Zidi. Having become an icon in France, she was also one of the rare French people to have conquered America: in the 1960s, after a concert at the Olympia, Régine performed, like Edith Piaf, at the mythical Carnegie Hall in New York.
Régina Zylberberg aka Régine was born on December 26, 1929 in Anderlecht, Belgium, to Polish Ashkenazi Jewish parents. She has a brother, who will become Maurice Bidermann, an industrialist in textiles and clothing. At the age of three, Régine and her family left Belgium to settle in Paris, where her father opened a café after the war, La Lumière de Belleville, which the future singer would take care of. In the 1950s, Régine discovered a passion for the night and in 1956 inaugurated her first nightclub, Chez Régine, rue du Four, in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris.
It is the first stone of her career as “queen of the night”, since the artist will open about twenty other establishments, all over the world. Alongside this career as a businesswoman, Régine is also, of course, a singer, with many successes. “I am very proud that some of them have become classics of variety (…) My first job was in discotheques. For a long time, singing was just a hobby. Today, I am realize that the scene was the most important in my life”, declared the night owl in 2020 to AFP.
In her repertoire, Régine has several successes, which have made her a popular singer. Here are the five absolutely essential songs of the singer:
- The little papers – 1965: this song was written by Serge Gainsbourg. The latter will have written him twelve. Les p’tits papiers, a huge popular success, will be taken up by many artists after Régine, in particular her friend, Jane Birkin.
- The Great Zoa – 1966: this song evokes Régine’s other passion: the world of the night. The text, written by Frédéric Botton, talks about a transvestite and his nocturnal trips to several places in the capital, “boa around the neck”.
- Open your mouth, close your eyes – 1968: another title illustrating Régine’s banter and irreverence: Open your mouth, close your eyes was also written for her by Serge Gainsbourg.
- Blues – 1972: Serge Gainsbourg also wrote this song, interpreted by Régine and which evokes violence against women. A lesser known song by the artist, which remains important in his career.
- Women are fagot – 1978: another title by Serge Gainsbourg, another irreverent text for Régine. This song evokes prejudice against homosexuals, mocked for a few clichés.
Régine had two husbands. At only 17 years old, on November 7, 1947, the future singer married Paul Rotcage, an apprentice leather worker. Together they have a son, Lionel Rotcage, a journalist born in 1948 and who died in 2006. Régine and Paul Rotcage divorced three years after their marriage. “I divorced, swearing never to have the ring on my finger again. My priority was to set up my nightclubs”, confided Régine in 2016 to Paris Match.
On December 6, 1969, Régine married Roger Choukroun for the second time, in Boncourt, in Eure-et-Loir. Her friend, Françoise Sagan, is her best man. Thirty years later, the couple divorced. “Of the thirty-four years of union with my last husband, we had to share really three”, she counted at Gala.
Régine therefore had an only son: Lionel Rotcage, born in 1948 from her marriage to Paul Rotcage. But after a battle with cancer, the singer’s son died in 2006. “I lost my only son twelve years ago and I will never get over it. Lionel was a journalist and businessman, he is died at the age of 58 from lung cancer. He suffered a lot from having to share me. We didn’t get along all the time, but we loved each other a lot”, confided Régine in the columns of France on Sunday, in 2018.
Before his disappearance, Lionel Rotcage had a granddaughter, Daphné, who also became the mother of a little boy named Léo.