French postcard by Iris / Editions Chantal, Paris, no. 455. Caption: Le tableau final de la revue du Australian Casino de Paris. (The final picture of the Australian Casino de Paris revue.)
Glamorous ballet dancer and film star Zizi Jeanmaire (1924) became famous in the 1950s after playing the title role in the ballet version of Carmen, produced in London in 1949. She went on to appear in films in France and Hollywood. She is the widow of dancer and choreographer Roland Petit, one of the major creative forces in ballet during the 1940s and 1950s.
Renée Marcelle Jeanmaire was born in Paris, France, in 1924. At the age of nine, she entered the Paris Opéra Ballet school in 1933, where she would meet her future husband and long-time collaborator Roland Petit. In 1940, she was engaged in the corps de ballet. In 1944, Renée Jeanmaire quitted the Paris Opera House to work with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. She joined shortly Petit’s new company, Les Ballets des Champs-Elysées in 1946, and rejoined him in 1949 at Les Ballets de Paris. Petit defined a new French chic and erotic frankness in dance, and Jeanmaire became his muse and prima ballerina. Petit reinvented the suffering, virginal ballerina as a provocative, irresistible femme fatale of the modern day. Two of their most famous ballets were Le jeune homme et la mort and Carmen, with Jeanmaire as the lethal female destroying a hapless male person in both. In its 2011 obituary of Petit, The Telegraph candidly recalled: “Petit created Carmen, an encapsulation of Bizet’s opera in ballet, which premiered in 1949 at the Prince’s Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, and became an instant world hit. Jeanmaire bobbed her hair short and wore a scant black corset, which, coupled with the candid seductiveness of her pas de deux with Petit, caused both scandalize and delight among the crowds who rushed to see it. One observer commented that he could see men’s trouser buttons popping during the performance.“ Their ballets caused a sensation worldwide and Petit and Jeanmaire (now Zizi Jeanmaire) swiftly became the most exciting names in French dance. Samuel Goldwyn invited them for the choreography and leading lady role in the fantasy Hans Christian Andersen (Charles Vidor, 1952) starring Danny Kaye as the famous Danish fairytale writer. In 1954 Petit and Jeanmaire married.
When Roland Petit and Zizi Jeanmaire toured the Ballets de Paris to Hollywood in 1955 they were showered with Hollywood invitations. To Jeanmaire’s chagrin Petit chose a younger lookalike, Leslie Caron, to be the lead in his Fred Astaire musical Daddy Long Legs (1955). Jeanmaire did appear in Petit’s Anything Goes (Robert Lewis, 1956) with Bing Crosby, but her Hollywood stint was brief. She returned to France to appear in such musicals as Folies-Bergère (Henri Decoin, 1956) with Eddie Constantine and choreography by Petit. In this film she first sang her hit song Mon truc en plumes. Petit also choreographed 1-2-3-4 ou Les Collants noirs/Black Tights (Terence Young, 1960) to show Zizi Jeanmaire’s magnetic balletic gifts alongside Cyd Charisse and Moira Shearer. Petit then created La Revue des Ballets de Paris and set about reinventing the Paris revue around his wife, exploring new levels of luxury and sophistication for her many talents. Not only did Jeanmaire dance like an angel in any style, dressed flamboyantly (and sometimes minimally) by costumiers such as Erté, but she possessed an alluring singing voice and a worldly verbal wit that sold countless records. Jeanmaire would go on produce more than than 60 shows with Petit. Zizi Jeanmaire and Roland Petit had one daughter, Valentine Petit, a dancer and actress. Jeanmaire was honored to be Chevalier des arts et des lettres (in 1962), Chevalier de la légion d’honneur (1974), Officier de l’ordre national du mérite (1983), Officier de la Légion d’honneur (1993), and Commandeur de l’ordre national du mérite (1997).
Sources: Official Zizi Jeanmaire site, The Telegraph, Wikipedia (English and French) and IMDb.
