Armand Mestral

Known as much as an actor as a singer, Armand Mestral was born in Paris on November 25, 1917. His real name was Armand Serge Zelikson, son of a Russian émigré sculptor and a draughtswoman, and he grew up with his half-sister Irénée Rochard, who would go on to make a name for herself in animal sculpture. An operatic singer with a bass voice when he first appeared at the Théâtre de la Gaïté-Lyrique, Armand Mestral appeared in Franz Lehár's operettas Le Pays du sourire and Maurice Yvain's Chanson gitane, where he scored his first success in 1946 with the aria "Jalousie". He turned to song via the cabaret circuit, making covers of French refrains and American melodies his specialty. He recorded "Ma cabane au Canada" (1948) as well as "Jézabel", "Mississippi", "Seize tonnes" and "Les Enchaînés", adaptations of "Jezebel", "Ol' Man River", "Sixteen Tons " and "Unchained Melody", respectively, which were popular on the other side of the Atlantic. Between several opera excerpts, he also included two arias from the film La Strada, "Gelsomina" and "La Strada (Le Grand chemin)". His repertoire continued to expand in the 1950s and 1960s, when he covered traditional country songs, French chanson classics on the albums Chansons de Toujours (1954) and Les Chansons Immortelles (1964), Christmas carols and opera arias, under the direction of orchestras such as Eugène Bigot, Paul Durand, Marcel Cariven and Pierre Dervaux. At the same time, Armand Mestral pursued an acting career, starring in René Clément's Gervaise (1956), for which he sang the title song, Jean-Paul Le Chanois' Mandrin, bandit genthilhomme (1962), Philippe Fourastié's La Bande à Bonnot, Edouard Molinaro's Mon oncle Benjamin (1969) and Alexandre Arcady's Le Grand Pardon 1 (1982). He also took part in the TV series Les Cinq dernières minutes, Les Brigades du Tigre and Les Enquêtes du commissaire Maigret. Retired from filming after Le Grand Pardon 2 (1992), Armand Mestral died in Paris on September 17, 2000, aged 82.

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