‘Minister of the night’ led Paris drag cabaret
MICHOU 1931-2020
For more than half a century, the most flamboyant figure in Paris’s liveliest district was a bouffant-haired man with a single name, Michou.
Habitually dressed in blue — often with a blue satin jacket, blue leather loafers and large blue-frame glasses — he presided over one of the city’s oldest and most beloved drag cabarets, Chez Michou, a small club in Montmartre that was said to have inspired the play and musical La Cage aux Folles.
There, he greeted politicians and celebrities including Cabaret actress Liza Minnelli, musician Serge Gainsbourg and French President Jacques Chirac, who named Michou a knight in the country’s Legion of Honour. Later in the evening, he might appear as a “transformiste,” a ringer for stars such as Édith Piaf and Sylvie Vartan.
He was 88, still running his beloved cabaret, when he died in hospital of a pulmonary embolism on Sunday.
“The sky of Montmartre, from now on, will be a little less blue,” France’s presidential Élysée Palace said in a statement, lauding Michou as a gay rights activist and civic leader. Appointed “minister of the night” by the Republic of Montmartre, a local cultural and charity group, Michou was known for hosting dozens of elderly residents at free monthly lunches, complete with songs and champagne.
By most accounts, his drag career began in the early 1960s. His clients included politicians from both the left and right, as well as entertainers such as Lauren Bacall, Josephine Baker, Jean-paul Belmondo, Jeanpierre Cassel, Claudette Colbert and Peter Sellers. Last week, first lady Brigitte Macron visited him wearing blue leather pants.
“The last dinosaur of the Parisian night,” as he called himself, was born Michel Georges Alfred Catty on June 18, 1931, in Amiens. He moved to Paris in 1949, and for seven years he washed dishes, waited tables and sold newspapers, eventually taking over a bar and turning it into Chez Michou.
Michou had been treated last year for colon cancer, which was said to be in remission. He had a longtime partner, Erwann Toularastel, and lived in a Paris apartment swathed in blue.
He had selected a blue coffin and acquired a blue marble tomb, according to the newspaper Le Parisien. Presumably, mourners at his burial on Friday would be dressed in blue, not black.
“Life will soon be over for me,” he told The Times last year. “But I can say that I’ve found happiness every single night that I’ve been here.”