1. Renee Marcelle "Zizi" Jeanmaire was a French ballet dancer, actress and singer.
13 Facts About Zizi Jeanmaire
1. 2.
Zizi Jeanmaire became famous in the 1950s after playing the title role in the ballet Carmen, produced in London in 1949, and went on to appear in several Hollywood films and Paris revues.
3.
Zizi Jeanmaire was the wife of dancer and choreographer Roland Petit, who created ballets and revues for her.
4.
Zizi Jeanmaire met her future husband and long-time collaborator Roland Petit at the Paris Opera Ballet when they were both aged nine.
5.
Zizi Jeanmaire danced in 1944 in the Soirees de la danse at the Theater Sarah Bernhardt.
6.
Zizi Jeanmaire became a ballerina of the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo in 1946, and danced during the last season of Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo in London in 1947.
7.
Zizi Jeanmaire created her most famous role, Carmen, to a musical arrangement of Bizet's opera.
8.
Zizi Jeanmaire first appeared as a chanson singer in Petit's Croqueuse de Diamants in 1950.
9.
Zizi Jeanmaire returned to Paris and married Petit that year.
10.
Zizi Jeanmaire appeared in film again in 1956, in Cole Porter's Anything Goes with Bing Crosby, but otherwise focused on dance, including Petit's La Rose des vents in 1958 and Cyrano de Bergerac in 1959.
11.
Zizi Jeanmaire performed the song in a dress by Yves Saint Laurent, who became her chief designer for stage and private clothes, and a friend.
12.
Zizi Jeanmaire's fame garnered her press attention, and she preferred seating at fashion shows, for example in a Yves Saint Laurent show in 1967, next to Elsa Martinelli, Francoise Hardy and Catherine Deneuve.
13.
Zizi Jeanmaire is mentioned in the Steve Harley song "Nothing Is Sacred" which contains the lyrics, "Zizi Jeanmaire wouldn't take this and neither will we".