Obituaries

Michou, flamboyant ‘minister of the night’ who led Paris drag cabaret, dies at 88

By Harrison Smith
Jan. 28, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. EST

For more than half a century, the most flamboyant figure in Paris’s liveliest district was a bouffant-haired man with a single name, Michou.

Habitually dressed in blue — often with a blue satin jacket, blue leather loafers and blue tinted lenses inside a pair of large blue glasses — he presided over one of the city’s oldest and most beloved drag cabarets, Chez Michou, a small club in Montmartre that was said to have inspired the play and musical “La Cage aux Folles.”

Seated at a table near the bar, he greeted politicians and celebrities including “Cabaret” actress Liza Minnelli, musician Serge Gainsbourg and French President Jacques Chirac, who named Michou a knight in the country’s Legion of Honor. Later in the evening, he might apply lipstick, mascara, false eyelashes and a wig to perform as a “transformiste,” a ringer for stars such as Édith Piaf and Sylvie Vartan.

“Brigitte Bardot once told me that we have the same derriere,” said Michou, who sometimes donned a tutu and straw hat to perform as the actress and sex symbol. He was 88, still running his beloved cabaret, when he died Jan. 26, spurring a lengthy remembrance from the office of President Emmanuel Macron.


At a 1986 dinner in Paris, Michou was joined by Jean-Claude Brialy, Liza Minnelli and Charles Aznavour, as well as the performer Silvestre and composer Georges Garvarentz. (Pierre Verdy/AFP/Getty Images)

“The sky of Montmartre, from now on, will be a little less blue,” the Élysée Palace said in a statement, lauding Michou as a singer and cabaret director as well as a gay rights activist and civic leader. Appointed “minister of the night” by the Republic of Montmartre, a local cultural and charity group, he was known for hosting dozens of elderly residents at free monthly lunches, complete with songs and champagne.

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Harrison Smith
Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago. Follow https://twitter.com/harrisondsmith