Michou on vacation in Saint-Tropez in August 2019. – Jacques BENAROCH / SIPA
Michou, famous director of the Parisian transformative cabaret of Montmartre who bears his name, died Sunday at the age of 88, announced to AFP the press attaché of the cabaret and the artist, who had served inspiration to the classic of cinemaThe cage of the mad. ”
Michou died early this Sunday morning in a hospital in Paris, “said François Deblaye. His real name Michel Catty, Michou had opened in 1956 his famous cabaret on the rue des Martyrs which has welcomed celebrities and strangers every day for more than 60 years, having dinner before the spectacle of transformist artists taking up the songs of the great stars of the time.
Born in Amiens (Somme), the young Michel “goes up to Paris” at 17, where he will finally become the “blue prince of Montmartre”, title of his memoirs, in homage to his favorite color, from costume to glasses, under an eternal platinum blonde brushing. While he runs a bar at 80 rue des Martyrs he crossdresss with two friends – he is Brigitte Bardot – on the occasion of the Mardi Gras carnival of 1956.
“I am fortunate to be a notorious and loved homosexual”
The success will be quick, the bar will become a cabaret and will offer the first post-war show made up of men dressed up as women to imitate the stars of the time. “I am fortunate to be a notorious and loved homosexual,” said the man who had become a figure of “the hill”, which he received once a month in his little establishment for the elderly.
The association the Republic of Montmartre thus expressed his “great mourning”. The
mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo praised on Twitter “an immense figure of tolerance and the Parisian night”.
It is with great sadness that I learn of the death of Michou, a lover of Montmartre and # Paris18. It’s a huge figure of tolerance, cabaret and the Parisian night that just left us ??
– Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) January 26, 2020
The announcement of his death provoked many reactions on social networks, artists, politicians, personalities and strangers. He had recently posted on his Facebook page photos dated January 20 where he can be seen losing weight with Brigitte Macron wearing… blue leather pants.
The cabaret should in any case not survive him. In his memoirs published in 2017, he indicated that he wanted to be buried in a blue coffin and that the cabaret in his name stopped when he died. “I want this house to disappear with me. It may seem pretentious, but the cabaret will not survive me, ”he wrote.
