Marcel Mouloudji

Marcel Mouloudji, born September 16, 1922 in the 4th arrondissement of Paris and died June 14, 1994 in Neuilly-sur-Seine is a French singer, songwriter, painter and actor. His songs, alternately committed and sentimental, evoke love, war, nostalgia between sadness and loneliness. He has notably interpreted texts by poets such as Boris Vian, Louis Aragon and Philippe Pauletto.

Marcel Mouloudji was born in 1922 in Paris to a bricklayer father and a housekeeper mother. His father, Saïd Mouloudji was born in 1896 in French Algeria in the Kabyle village of Leflaye (tribe of Aït Waghlis, daïra of Sidi-Aïch), and his mother, Eugénie Roux is a Breton born in Paris in 1901. The family knows serious problems: when Marcel was only ten years old, his mother was hospitalized for a mental disorder and his illiterate father, housed in a maid’s room, had trouble raising his two sons, the eldest of whom, André, was gravely ill and the second, a gentle dreamer who finds accommodation by chance encounters.

During his adolescence, Marcel enrolled with his brother in a left-wing youth movement, the Faucons Rouges, close to the SFIO. In 1935, he met Sylvain Itkine, director and member of the October Group, an organization affiliated with the Fédération des Théâtres Ouvriers de France. Marcel Maillot, director of a Syndicat du livre summer camp, encouraged him to sing with his brother. He was soon noticed by Jean-Louis Barrault. During this period, Marcel was thus hosted by Jean-Louis Barrault, who introduced him to the artistic milieu of Paris. He participated in the artistic life associated with the Popular Front in 1936. In 1936, he appeared in the film La Guerre Des Gosses by Jacques Daroy. In 1937, for the film Claudine À L’École by Serge de Poligny, the screenwriter Jacques Constant, around Blanchette Brunoy, created the character of “Petit Moulou”… soon to be Mouloudji. In 1938, Marcel played one of the three young heroes in Disparus De Saint-Agil by Christian-Jaque. In 1939, Marcel played the role of Louis in Christian-Jaque’s film L’Enfer Des Anges, a film selected for the 1939 Cannes Film Festival which did not take place, and released in February 1941. In 1942, he played the role of ‘Ephraïm Luska in Henri Decoin’s film, The Strangers in the House, after Georges Simenon…

Jacques Canetti, famous artistic agent. He will offer him to record “Comme Un P’tit Coquelicot” thanks to which Mouloudji obtains the Grand Prix du Disque 1953 and the Charles-Cros Prize in 1952 and 1953. He repeats with “Un Jour Tu Verras” the following year. He reappears in films like Henri Calef in 1949 or We Are All Assassins three years later. His last roles, he did in Rafles sur la ville by Pierre Chenal then in Llegaron Dos Hombres in 1958.

After recording a disc with accordionist Marcel Azzola in 1976 called “And it was turning”, he released “Unknown Unknowns” thanks to which he went on tour throughout the country. Exhausted, he decides to devote more time to writing and painting. He partially lost his voice due to pleurisy in 1992 but was still working on a new album. He died on June 14, 1994 and is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.