Janine Ervil
(ARTISTES LYRIQUES)
82 Av. de Saint-Ouen, 75018 Paris, France
The soprano voice of classical singer Janine Ervil could be heard on the Parisian stage of the Théâtre du Châtelet in Le Secret de Marco Polo in the late 1950s. On disc she featured alongside Bourvil in the operetta L’Auberge Du Cheval Blanc (1962). In the cinema she appeared in the 1967 operetta Le Prince de Madrid, directed by Marcel Lamy.

Norman Maine
(CHEFS D’ORCHESTRES)
247 Rue Marcadet, 75018 Paris, France
The orchestra of bandleader Norman Maine (real name André Lucien Robert Cazenabe) released a number of recordings with popular singers in the 1950s and 60s, these included Arlette Zola, Harold Nicholas, Miguel Cordoba, and fellow Montmartre residents Miguel Amador and Gérard Laviny. His instrumental releases reflected the sounds of the mid-century dance floor, with twist, cha-cha, madison, and Latin grooves.

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Andre Jobin
(ARTISTES LYRIQUES)
17 Rue Coysevox, 75018 Paris, France
Born in Quebec City in 1933, Andre Jobin was a singer, actor and stage designer who made his singing debut at the Théâtre de l’Étoile in Nouvelle-Orléans in 1958. Jobin’s opera career took off in 1963, with leading performances in Gluck’s Orphée, Haydn’s The Apothecary, and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. In the 1970s he moved to London, taking on the starring role in Jerome Kern’s Showboat at the Adelphi Theatre, he stayed almost three years, performing it 935 times.

Christiane Oriol
(CHANTEURS ET CHANTEUSES)
8 Rue d’Oslo, 75018 Paris, France
In 1963 Parisian singer-songwriter Christiane Oriol released her debut record, Christiane, at the age of 20. A handful of singles and albums in the 1960s developed into a successful career creating songs for younger audiences. Releases included the album L’École De Madame Nicole, which won the Grand Prix du Disque (Académie Charles-Cros), and the children’s musical Lili Moutarde, which was also recognised by the Académie Charles-Cros.

Catherine Rouvel
(COMEDIENNES)
166 Rue Lamarck, 75018 Paris, France
In the 1950s actress Catherine Rouvel made an impact in the theatres of the South of France (Marseille and Carcassonne) before her career really blossomed in Paris in the 1960s. She quickly made an impact in the film world with an early success in the lead role of Jean Renoir’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1959). She played other leading film roles throughout the early 1960s, in Chair de poule (1963), Le roi du village (1963), and Les amoureux du France (1964), before moving into TV work. Over the next 60 years she would alternate between TV, film and theatre, with multiple appearances on the TV series, Les rois maudits, Clochemerle, Le vagabond, and Le tourbillon des jours.

Guesch Patti
(CHANTEURS ET CHANTEUSES)
24 Rue Etex, 75018 Paris, France
Born in Paris (1946) Guesch Patti (real name Patricia Porrasse) started her career as a classical dancer at the Opéra National de Paris before moving toward contemporary dance, in which she held a lifelong passion. In the 1960s she formed the duo Yves et Patricia with pianist and composer Yves Gilbert, who she also married. Together they released 5 EPs on the Philips label without making a big impact on the music scene. Guesch’s revival in the 1980s was the complete opposite, when her 1987 hit Étienne topped the charts in France and Italy. The song would go on to to achieve gold disc status and win the Vincent Scotto prize. Later she would resume her career as a dancer and dabble in both theatre and cinema. She was the daughter of Jean Porrasse, artistic director at Pathé Marconi.

Yves Gilbert
(CHANTEURS ET CHANTEUSES)
24 Rue Etex, 75018 Paris, France
In 1961 Yves Gilbert (b.1937) was signed as a singer-songwriter by the Philips record company. He formed a duo with his wife Guesch Patti, but it will be his association with Serge Lama that he will be most remembered for. Gilbert would compose the music on which Lama placed his words, together they would add to the repertoires of Nana Mouskouri, Isabelle Aubret, Juliette Gréco, Marie Laforêt, The Three Degrees, and of course Lama himself. For ten years Gilbert would accompany Lama on his tours, and in the 1980s wrote the music for Lama’s epic musical Napoleon.

Germaine Kerjean
(COMÉDIENNES)
14 Rue Etex, 75018 Paris, France
Germaine Kerjean (1893-1975) made her theatre debut in Charles Dullin ‘s troupe, before becoming a resident of the Comédie Française from 1946 to 1956. In the cinema, she made her debut in Henri Fescourt’s 1929 film Monte-Cristo, and would go on to play unsympathetic character roles. In fact one journalist described the actress as one of the only French actresses who would play ugly roles, sacrificing her good looks for the benefit of the part.

Andre Oumansky
(COMÉDIENS)
3 Rue Etex, 75018 Paris, France
Although Parisian actor Andre Oumansky debuted first on the stage (1957, Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt) it would be television and cinema where he would be most active. He appeared in over 100 productions across both artforms between 1958 and 2021. He regularly popped up in some of France’s most popular TV series, including the series that employed more Montmartre actors than any other, Les cinq dernières minutes. Oumansky was active in the field of dubbing, where he doubled his voice for those of Omar Sharif (in Doctor Zhivago) and Gary Oldman (in Dracula).