CELEBRATING the New Year is no doubt a great delight and the ecstasy can be doubled if first of January also happens to be your birthday. But Suzy added a third point to her festivities this year as she turned 100 last Monday.

Many of you, especially the younger generation readers, must be wondering and asking themselves who on earth is this Suzy?

Good question, and there happen to be many answers to it. First of all she is a singer and dancer who started her career more than 80 years ago on the stage at the legendary Folies Bergères music hall in the Montmartre area of Paris where she was also born, the daughter of seamstress lady. To begin with, she sang and danced in the famous operettas of Jacques Offenbach and Johann Strauss, among so many by other musical geniuses, while still a teenager.

As early as 1931 Suzy Delair became not only a French movie star but was also sought after by great Hollywood directors such as Alexander Korda, famous for his Jungle Book and Thief of Baghdad. She also became a favourite of Robert Siodmak, the man who would later discover Burt Lancaster in The Killers (1946) and Tony Curtis in Criss-Cross (1948).

But her international stardom came at age 23 when she played a role in a movie called The Last of the Six directed by George Lacombe in 1941. Soon afterwards, she would sing ‘Tralala’… in another film Quai des Orfèvres to become a legend of the French culture. Older generation people here immediately start humming ‘Tralala’ even today as soon as you mention the name of Suzy Delair.

There also was a dark point in her career when she accepted an invitation by the Germans during the occupation of France to visit a number of film studios in Munich, Berlin and Vienna. When asked by a journalist on return to Paris if she regretted her decision, absolutely unconcerned with politics she answered: “The only thing I regret is not being able to shake hands with Joseph Goebbels.”

But her friskiness was soon forgotten because of her monumental talents and when she sang in 1950 another of her hit songs ‘C’est si bon’ at the Monte Carlo Casino, one of her admirers sitting in the front row was none else than Louis Armstrong. Later, with her permission, he would sing his own interpretation. It’s so good that remains, even after seven decades, one of the most favourite jazz chef d’oeuvres of all times.

Delair had the honour in 1951 of playing in Atoll K, the last movie made by Laurel and Hardy together. Another international genius to use her talents would be the Italian director Luchino Visconti who cast her in his 1960 classic Rocco & his Brothers.

She would continue playing roles in movies until the late 1970s and one of the biggest hits would be the hilarious Adventures of Rabi Jacob in which Louis de Funes performed the principal role.

Seeing her 100th birthday approaching, the prestigious club Cinémathèque Française recently held a special evening to pay tributes to Suzy Delair. She attended it in perfect physical form, not bothering to dye her snow-white hair that appeared most dignified.

So, once again, it is time to say happy birthday, a very happy 100th new year and, why not, ‘Tralala’ to Suzy Delair!

—The writer is a journalist based in Paris.

ZafMasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2018