France Gall
Singer who won Eurovision with Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son
FRANCE GALL, who has died of cancer aged 70, first topped the French charts as a teen pop idol with a childlike voice and an air of innocence that contrasted with some of her more sexually suggestive songs; she was the biggest female star of French “Yé-yé” (“Yeah-yeah”) pop
– a term inspired by the lyrics of the Beatles’ song, She Loves You.
With her blonde bob and heart-shaped face, the 17-year-old enchanted viewers of the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest with her winning entry, the bubbly baby-pop song Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son (“Wax Doll, Rag Doll”), written by Serge Gainsbourg.
“Poupée de son” also means “song doll” (operated by a string on the back) and there were suggestions that Gainsbourg’s intention was to cast France Gall as the rather mindless instrument through which he channelled his thoughts.
The following year her hit song Les Sucettes (“Lollipops”), another Gainsbourg effort, caused something of a scandal and in later life France Gall said that she had been too young at 18 to realise that the lyrics could be interpreted as referring to oral sex.
She was born Isabelle Geneviève Marie Anne Gall in Paris on October 9 1947. Her father, Robert, was a singer and songwriter who wrote songs for Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour. Her mother, Cécile Berthier, was also a singer and founded a well-known boys’ choir.
Young Isabelle was asked to take a stage name at her first audition for a record label at the age of 15 as Denis Bourgeois, the artistic director of Philips, wanted to avoid confusion with another singer, Isabelle Aubret, who had won the Eurovision contest the previous year.
A passionate rugby fan, Bourgeois is said to have chosen the name “France” while watching the national team play Wales. The match was billed in an abbreviated form as “France-galles” and he decided that that France Gall should be his protégée’s new name.
Her first single, Ne sois pas si bête (“Don’t be so silly”), in which a young girl tells her shy young boyfriend to kiss her, was first played on radio on her 16th birthday. It sold more than 200,000 copies. After she won the Eurovision contest, France became one of the most popular Christian names for French newborns and France Gall herself was seen as embodying the spirit of 1960s France.
At the time she entered the competition she was dating the French glamrocker Claude François, who, after her winning performance, accused her of singing off-key.
Unsurprisingly the relationship did not last and in 1968 he wrote a song about their break-up, Comme d’habitude. Paul Anka bought the rights and transformed it into My Way, which became a huge hit for Frank Sinatra.
France Gall met her future husband, the singer Michel Berger, in 1973, and the following year he wrote her a hit song, La Déclaration d’amour. They married in 1976 and from then on she only performed songs he composed, moving from baby-pop to rock, lowering her pitch and adding more reflective lyrics.
Her career lasted nearly 50 years, with many of her songs becoming classics in France, though she never managed to export her success to the Englishspeaking world. In the 1980s she became involved in humanitarian projects, mainly in Africa.
Michel Berger died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1992, aged only 44, and France Gall retired from music in 1997 after the death of their daughter Pauline, who had cystic fibrosis.
From 1995 she lived with Bruck Dawit, an Ethiopian-american producer and musician who worked with Sting, Prince, the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton.
He survives her with her son, Raphaël, a music producer.
France Gall, born October 9 1947, died January 7 2018