Anecdotes

She was arrested in Paris by the Gestapo in 1943 during World War II and served one month of Prison in Fresnes for acts of Résistance. She was only 16. Her mother and sister were deported in the concentration camp of Ravensbrück. They came back alive after 2 years in 1945.

Almost married Miles Davis when he visited Paris (1949).

Born to a Corsican father and a mother active in the French Resistance, she was raised by her grandparents. She was helped in Paris during the war by Hélène Duc.

"Protegee" of Darryl F. Zanuck, who put her in a number of films in the late 50s-early 60s.

Muse of the French existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Boris Vian.

Suffered a heart attack on stage in her hometown Montpellier, but recovered (2001).

Came to fame as a singer in Parisian nightclubs on the Left Bank, interpreting chansons written by existentialist writers (gaining her the nickname 'la Muse de l'existentialisme'). Her close associates included Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Greco never came close to translating her success as a singer to films, chiefly due to the generally poor quality of the scripts she had to work with.

French singer and actress.

Grand Officer of the Ordre National du Mérite.

Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Commander of the Légion d'Honneur .

Supported Lionel Jospin's 2002 presidential campaign.

An adherent of the political left, she supported François Mitterrand in the 1974 presidential election,.

She's portrayed by Anna Mouglalis in Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) (2010).

In 1938, she became a ballerina at the Opéra Garnier.

Friends with Anna-Marie Cazalis, Annabel Buffet, Françoise Sagan, Boris Vian, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Prévert,Raymond Queneau, Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg.

A place in her honor in front of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church was inaugurated on 24 September 2021.

She died the same year and from the same cause as her second husband Michel Piccoli.

In L'homme et l'enfant (1956), she slaps and whips Nadine Tallier.