“Let me entertain you”, “let me entertain you”. This is the title of his disc, recently reissued.
“Let me distract you” is a sentence that tells it since it takes the side of laughing and gives the appearance of having the strength even in the face of tragedies.
Amanda Lear has a crazy life and the elegance to take it lightly. She knew the fury of the Swinging London of the 60s with Stones and Beatles, the excesses of the disco of the 70s between New York, Paris and Munich. Or Berlusconi’s Italian TV in the early 80s.
She carries with her a whole history of pop, which she has crossed on stiletto heels.
A badass, as we would say today. She walks down the corridor of the palace where we are as if she were at home and just as we imagine her: racy blonde, broad shoulders, dark glasses.
We enter a room or rather in a suite and she sighs. Overplay the weariness with a smirk as I enthuse myself about this demented place.
His relationship with Salvador Dalí
Amanda Lear has a special history with the Meurice hotel, in which she welcomes Rebecca Manzoni: “The first time I met Salvador Dalí, I was a model at Paco Rabanne and he lived in the Meurice. And that’s how that I discovered that he had had a suite on the first floor all year round, for years. I was very impressed, I who was at the Beaux-Arts. I lived on rue de Seine in a rotten little thing in Saint -Germain-des-Prés and later, when I finally started selling my first disco records, I got my first American Express card. I was so proud and I moved to Le Meurice to piss him off. And so he wasn’t happy because I lived above him.“
She says he was a Spanish macho, with whom she was in a relationship of financial dependence at the start of their affair. When she told him that she also painted, he replied: “You know, my little one, I’ll stop you right there. Women have no talent, there are no women painters, that’s not doesn’t exist. It never existed. Painting is people.”
From a painter, she then became a singer. She explains that it happened like that, when she was a model and lived in England.
Her debut as a singer
One fine day, the singer Brian Ferry of the rock group Roxy Music, fell a little in love with her when he saw her parade on a catwalk. He wanted her to be on the cover of their second album, “For Your Pleasure”, all in black leather, with a panther on a leash. We are in 1973 and he wanted a somewhat Hitchcockian image of a mysterious, distant woman. It is an image that has become cult.
Amanda Lear has fully entered into this character of a domineering woman. He set his image and a course for his discography too. In 1975, she recorded her very first 45 rpm. It’s an adaptation of “Trouble” by Elvis Presley.
And then it turned to glitter and disco. Initially, she liked rock and got into it a bit reluctantly. She says: “I went into the studio in Munich and I did what I was told, that is to say a first disco album that sold all over the world. So suddenly, they said: ‘we must not stop, do a second and third, then a fourth.’ After a while, well, it’s okay. Now I am the Disco Queen or Disco Queen. We will stop. Will I finally be able to rock? Because I want to rock’n’roll and they didn’t want to change. So there, a lawsuit, I tried to break my contract and it was very difficult.
When she was younger, she hated the bourgeoisie: “The word bourgeoisie is a horrorthat is to say this traditional, respected side, families, institutions… Me, I didn’t want to become bourgeois above all.” And then, she got married, to a marquis husband, moreover, became a marquise and had the impression of having become a bourgeoise, which also worried her about the image it sent back to her fans.
Amanda Lear, painter
Painting is still very important to her even though it’s the thing people know the least about her: “For me, it’s such an intimate way to express yourself. You’re all alone in front of a white canvas. There you go, there’s not a whole team around you who does your make-up, who puts on the lights. We’re quiet at home and no one comes to bother you. Painting is something that will last forever.”
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