WITHOUT PLUMES

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30442, 16 May 1964, Page 2

WITHOUT PLUMES

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The successful always make their success sound so easy. “One night,” recalls the French entertainer who Is famous enough to go by the single name of Patachou, “I sang a song for my friends in the restaurant I was running. One found it amusing. One suggested that I should go on singing. I never took that seriously. Bui four days later I

thought about it again. “I began to sing. One song, two songs. Soon 1 was singing every night. Paris is a village. Soon word got

SUSAN VAUGHAN]

round. ‘Who is this woman who sings?' ”

Patachou went on the music halls. She travelled the world: Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela. Next week she opens in New York with the Folies Bergere, which is visiting America for the first time in 40 years. It won’t be her first American trip. Patachou has the reputation c f being the onlyforeign female artist to fill New York’s Carnegie Hall. She is married to Arthur Lesser, who is producing the Folies show in New York. This perhaps explains the presence, among the bare skin and bright feathers of an artist who has the haughtiness of one who has made her way from her birthplace in the poor Paris district of Menilmontant. “Remember,” she says, “1 will not be playing the Folies style. No plumes for me. No legs. It is not that I disapprove. It is just not my profession.” (All rights reserved.)