Jean-Paul Vignon, the romantic French vocalist and actor who impressed audiences on every aspect of the Atlantic at some level of an eight-decade profession, died March 22 of liver most cancers in Beverly Hills, his family launched. He was once 89.
Performing a repertoire of latest pop and American standards, Vignon debuted within the U.S. in 1963 on the vital New York supper club The Blue Angel, where he opened for humorist Woody Allen.
Ed Sullivan would soon showcase him on his Sunday evening CBS range exhibit in eight appearances — in conjunction with one wherein he sang a duet with young Liza Minnelli — and he grew to change into an everyday visitor on Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin’s programs.
Signed to Columbia Records, Vignon launched his first U.S. album, On fable of I Fancy You, in 1964. Three years later, he had a supporting feature opposite William Holden and Cliff Robertson within the World War II film The Devil’s Brigade.
In a 1994 profile within the Los Angeles Instances, reporter Robert Koehler vital, “Vignon fulfilled the American image of the romantic, singing Frenchman. Satirically, rather than compare his stammer to such vital Gallic crooners as Maurice Chevalier and Gilbert Bécaud, Vignon says that he has a Bobby Darin more or less stammer, in a situation to relate rapid and passionate or soft and slack.”
He endured to play some of the highest rooms in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and different foremost cities into the early 1970s, and in ’74 he recorded a single, “You,” with Farrah Fawcett, then a slightly unknown young actress and model.
Changing viewers tastes stalled his profession, but he did host a Canadian TV exhibit produced by Dick Clark known as The Sensuous Man, which ended a week with him reclining in a bathtub. And for a Playgirl centerfold in 1973, he sported a sweater once worn in a notorious photo shoot by Marilyn Monroe and runt else.
Born on Jan. 30, 1935, within the port metropolis of Dire-Daou within the colonial territory of French Somaliland (later identified as Djibouti), Vignon was once schooled in Avignon, France. He like a flash studied treatment in Marseille and legislation on the Sorbonne in Paris but decided to pursue tune elephantine time.
He was once in his early 20s when, on the advice of Belgian singer-actor Jacques Brel, he secured a prestigious cabaret job in Paris that will presumably per chance begin his profession.
The baritone debuted in front of the cameras as the superstar of the 1956 feature Les Promesses Dangereuses, then followed with a performance opposite Francoise Arnoul within the romantic drama Asphalte (1959).
Meanwhile, he had signed as a vocalist with France’s Disques Vogue, which aimed to originate him as an artist alongside the lines of such balladeers as Charles Trenet (his idol), Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour. His first album was once 1957’s autobiographical Djibouti.
His profession in France began to jog after he served 17 months of compulsory military service, but after opening for Edith Piaf and performing on board the French liner Liberté sooner than such ocean-going celebrities as Ernie Kovacs, Edie Adams and Carol Burnett, he decided to are attempting his success within the States.
As he wrote in his 2018 memoir, From Ethiopia to Utopia, “My adventurous spirit was once telling me, ‘Marco Polo did no longer hesitate to transfer to China, Henry Morton Stanley did no longer hesitate to presume exploring Central Africa and safe Dr. Livingston, Christopher Columbus did no longer hesitate to skedaddle west to secret agent The united states … so it is your turn to secret agent the US.’”
After years of profession ebbs and flows, he returned to the L.A. cabaret scene in 1993, encouraged by such pop vocalists as Harry Connick Jr., Michael Feinstein and Tony Bennett and the rupture success of “Unforgettable,” which paired the slack Nat King Cole and his daughter Natalie. He would live titillating into his 80s with appearances at Feinstein’s at Vitello’s and the Catalina Jazz Membership.
Along the skill, he would also appear on such presentations as The Rockford Recordsdata, Resort, Falcon Crest, L.A. Guidelines, Columbo, Days of Our Lives and Gilmore Girls; stammer with out a doubt one of many Merry Men in Shrek (2001); and stammer the romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer season (2009).
Meanwhile, his firm, Côte d’Azur Productions, equipped French audiences with translations and overdubs of Scarface and different American movies.
Survivors embody his longtime partner, Suzie Summers; daughters Marguerite Vignon Gaul (from his marriage to slack American actress Brigid Bazlen) and Lucy Brank; and granddaughters Leah and Hannah.
