Line Renaud born 2 July 1928

Line Renaud (born July 2, 1928) is a popular French singer, actress and AIDS activist.

She was born Jacqueline Ente in Pont-de-Nieppe on 2 July 1928. Her mother Simone was a shorthand typist; her father was a truck driver during the week, but he played the trumpet on weekends, in a local brass band. Line showed the first signs of her talent in primary school, when at the age of seven she won an amateur competition.

During the Second World War, Jacqueline's father was mobilised, spending five years away from the family. During this time, Jacqueline was brought up by her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Her grandmother had a café in Armentières, where she used to sing for passing soldiers. She auditioned at Conservatoire de Lille, singing songs written by Loulou Gasté "Sainte-Madeleine" and "Mon âme au diable". Louis Gasté was at that time a well-known French composer. 

At the end of the audition, she was approached by the director of Radio Lille who was looking for a singer. She took the pseudonym of Jacqueline Ray and joined the station singing a repertoire based on the songs by Loulou Gasté. In 1945, she moved to Paris and got her first gig in Folies Belleville, where she was introduced to Gasté. She was 16, and Gasté was 37. He became her mentor, changing her image and her name.

                              

Line Renaud made her national debut on Radio Luxembourg, singing on a Sunday morning program. After signing a contract with Pathe Marconi, she recorded "Ma Cabane au Canada", written by Loulou Gasté, which won le Grand Prix du Disque in 1949. She also sang with Yves Montand in the Théâtre de l'Etoile. 

Line & Loulou Gaste 1949

She toured Europe and Africa extensively, came back to Paris to star at the ABC, and recorded numerous adaptations of American songs such as "Ma petite folie", "Etoile des neiges" and "Le chien dans la vitrine".

Line found time to clock up 23 films (58 if you include TV movies) between 1946 and 2008. In 1950, she married "Loulou" Gasté and stayed with him until his death in 1995.  In 1954, while performing at Moulin Rouge, she met Bob Hope and subsequently appeared in five episodes of The Bob Hope Show in the US. During this trip, she also sang in the Waldorf Astoria (New York) and the Cocoanut Grove (Los Angeles), appeared on Johnny Carson, Dinah Shore and Ed Sullivan shows and recorded with Dean Martin the song ‘Relax ay voo’.

In 1959, she started a four-year run of ‘Plaisir de Paris’ for Henri Varna and then went on to perform in a Las Vegas show at Dunes from 1963 to 1965. In 1966 she returned to Paris and the Casino de Paris starring in a new show, Desir de Paris. 

Line with Elvis & Edward G. Robinson 1968

In 1968, she returned to Las Vegas for a number of performances. In France, in 1973 she created an American show which she toured for two years around the country. She then helped Casino de Paris, threatened by closing, by putting on a show called ‘Paris – Line’ with Loulou Gasté, which ran for four years.

In the 1980s, she starred in a TV show Telle est Line for Antenne 2 and recorded songs in English and French. At Casino de Paris, she put on a one off show which retraced her forty-year career. Also, in 1981, she served as an unofficial on-air "guide" for Merv Griffin when he taped "The Merv Griffin Show" in Paris, and in 1982 she was a guest on Perry Como's Christmas special in Paris.

In 1985, she created l'Association des Artistes Contre le Sida and organised televised art events which enabled her to raise funds for helping AIDS scientific research in France. In 1989, she toured around Japan as part of a festival which marked the bicentennial of the French Revolution.

She released an album in November 2010 entitled Rue Washington, on which she sang in duet with Johnny Hallyday and Mylène Farmer. This return to singing allowed her to give, at age 82, her first concert at the Olympia.

In October 2017, she opened a street bearing her name in Las Vegas . The path, located near the mythical Strip , the gigantic artery that runs through the city, provides access to a secondary entrance to the casino Caesars Palace . The "Line Renaud Road" is not far from the streets bearing the names of her friends Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. 

On April 11, 2019, the 90-year-old singer and actress reportedly fell in her home garden in Rueil-Malmaison and fractured her ankle and had to be hospitalized. According to her Facebook she is now back at her home. Also this year, Brigitte Macron awarded her the prize of the most optimistic woman in France. She has wholeheartedly embraced a career which she pursues to this day with talent and dedication.  (Edited mainly from Wikipedia)