Weekend festivities

The little town of Noyers-sur-Cher, across the river from Saint-Aignan, is having a big party this weekend. There will be a vide-grenier (an "empty your attic" flea market), donkey races, food and drink, and a concert featuring the singer called Dave. Admission is free.


It's mildly surprising that a star as well known as Dave would be doing a concert in such a small town. He is a big star, though the main part of his career is behind him by now. Born Wouter Otto Levenbach in 1944 in the Netherlands, Dave came to France in the late 1960s and began a successful singing and recording career. According to a French Wikipedia article, he is fluent in five languages, and one of his best and oldest friends is the actor Daniel Auteuil. They were both in the French version of Godspell so many years ago.

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Dave in the 1970s on
a greatest hits album
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During the 1970s, Dave sold millions of records in France. One of his biggest hits was called Vanina, which was a French version of the old Del Shannon hit Runaway. As the disco era began, he sang Dansez Maintenant and Du Côté de Chez Swann, both big hits (called tubes in French) that I remember hearing all the time on the radio back then.

In the 1980s, as a movement to allow private radio stations in France gained momentum, Dave's career went into decline. The old government-run stations had played much more French music, but the new private ones favored music from America and England. Dave continued his career by performing all around France at events like the one in Noyers this weekend.

As the Wikipedia article puts it, by the mid-1990s Dave « ne fait plus aucun secret sur son homosexualité. » Like so many people around the world, including in France, he came out. I remember being surprised the first time I heard him, in a television interview, mention the fact that he is gay. In 2003 he published a book about his 1970s "glitter career" and talked about his 30-year relationship with his partner and lyricist, Patrick Loiseau.

Well, I didn't know I was going to write so much about Dave. He's an interesting character, and is in many ways an example of how our societies have changed since the 1960s. At the same time, for me he was a TV/radio voice, and I would never have bought one of his records. What he did was, to my ear, just French bubble-gum music (if you remember that term).

To hear samples of Dave's hit songs, you can click this link to go to the FNAC.com site.

Meanwhile, don't miss the flea market, donkey races, Parisian cabaret, and fireworks in Noyers-sur-Cher this weekend. Here's more of the flyer the organizers sent out.


We won't be going to the fête, unfortunately. Callie probably wouldn't enjoy it. She's not comfortable in crowds yet, and she has no nostalgia for Dave's hit records.

Michel Serrault, 1928-2007

Serrault in La Cage aux Folles

The prodigious French comedian and stage and film actor Michel Serrault passed away during the night in Honfleur at the age of 79. Over the course of his career, he appeared in some 135 movies. The role most Americans are likely to know him for was that of Albin Mougeotte, alias the hysterical « Zaza Napoli », in La Cage aux Folles (a 1978 film). Serrault had previously played the role on stage in Paris for several years and a total of some 900 performances.

Serrault began his career in Paris cabarets in the 1950s. He quickly moved into film roles — his first part was in the thriller Les Diaboliques (1954) with Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse, and (!) Johnny Halliday. In 1971, he played one of his classic comedy roles in a film called Le Viager, which tells the story of a man who sells his house and property to a very greedy, mercenary family but keeps a lifetime right to live there and then outlives everybody else.

I remember Serrault from numerous TV appearances in the 1970s, when I lived in Paris. He always had everybody, from show hosts to other guests and the audience, in stitches.

Michel Serrault and Emmanuelle Béart

In 1995, Serrault and Emmanuelle Béart played the title roles in Claude Sautet's Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud. The film is a captivating and unexpected love story involving individuals from different generations. It's a movie I can watch over and over again without getting tired of the dialog and photography.

I think I enjoyed him in that role more than in any other I've seen him play. Also in the movie are Michael Lonsdale and Jean-Hugues Anglade. Computers play a major role too, as do Paris scenery and the French language. Sautet, who died in 2000, was one of the most talented French movie directors.

Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud at work

It saddens me to see the great French actors of the past 40 years passing away now. Part of France dies with them. Jean Yanne, Jean-Claude Brialy, Philippe Noiret, Jacques Villeret... A country really is both a place and a time.