Annabel Buffet

Writer and singer Annabelle Buffet, also known as Annabel, was the muse of painter Bernard Buffet. Born Annabelle Schwob de Lure in Paris on May 10, 1928, she lost her mother at the age of seven and grew up in Cannes, before taking acting lessons in Paris. With her slender figure and short haircut, she appeared in Jean Cocteau's Les Enfants terribles (1950) and Orson Welles' Dossier secret (1955). She became a fixture of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés scene in the 1950s, where she made friends with Juliette Gréco and Françoise Sagan, whose lyrics she sang on her first album 25cm in 1956. In June 1958 in Saint-Tropez, she met the painter Bernard Buffet, whose life she was to share. The couple married later that year in Ramatuelle, and adopted three children. Muse to the painter, who depicted her in several of his paintings, including the Trente fois Annabel series, Annabelle Buffet devoted herself to writing for a decade, publishing seven novels before recording her own songs on albums featuring portraits of her husband: Aquarelle (1969), Annabel 71 (1971) and Annabel (1974), released by Barclay, followed by Album de Famille (1978) and the double Annabel (1980). After Bernard Buffet's suicide from Parkinson's disease on October 4, 1999, the writer and singer withdrew to the Yonne region to revive her memories in Post-scriptum (2001). A heavy drinker and inveterate smoker, Annabelle Buffet died at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine on August 3, 2005, aged 77.

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