Cannes (AFP)
Hundreds of people including Dave or Michèle Torr came to Cannes on Saturday to pay a moving tribute to Annie Cordy, a "clown" but also "a juggler of emotions".
The Belgian singer and actress died last week at the age of 92, after feeling unwell at her home in Vallauris, in the Alpes-Maritimes.
The ceremony took place outdoors on the Butte de Saint-Cassien, a bucolic setting well known to Cannes residents.
In its image, it was open to the public, a limit of 500 people with compulsory mask.
Besides Dave or Michèle Torr, the humorist Roland Magdane and the singer Charlotte Julian were present.
Emmanuelle Guilcher, deputy director of programming France 2, described a friend "sensitive and modest, terribly modest".
"There were all the colors of life in what you sang and these colors shone on your Harlequin coat", "you were a clown but also a tightrope walker on the edge of our weaknesses, a juggler of emotions", a continued Claude Lemesle, lyricist who wrote on La Rafle du Vel d'Hiv for the artist to music by Gilbert Bécaud.
A title that rubs shoulders in its repertoire with his funny songs, "Tata Yoyo" or "La bonne du curé".
His coffin was framed on the stage by two large portraits of the artist and around innumerable wreaths of flowers, notably from the family of Luis Mariano, the city of Brussels, who named a park in his name two years ago, or of the former Belgian king Albert II.
In Brussels, moreover, the metro paid tribute to him in its own way, by broadcasting a selection of his songs in the stations all day long.
Léonie Cooreman was born in Laeken, district of Brussels, on June 16, 1928.
Spicy blonde, she had started in orchestras singing American standards, before being hired as a magazine leader at "Bœuf sur le Toit" in Brussels, then in Paris at "Lido" in 1950, where she became Annie Cordy.
From operettas to musicals, through laughter, song, theater, cinema and television films, the indefatigable fantasy artist has shown an almost manic perfectionism.
And the professional entertainer was also an excellent actress.
After making her debut with Sacha Guitry ("Si Versailles m'être conté", 1953), she had broadened by dramatic roles in "The Passenger of the Rain" by René Clément, "Le Chat" (Pierre Granier-Deferre), with alongside Jean Gabin and Simone Signoret, or "La Rupture" (Claude Chabrol).
In 2015, she sounded just as true in her role of runaway grandmother in "Les souvenirs" by Jean-Paul Rouve.
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