The singer Regine, best known as the Parisian “Queen of the Night”, died today at the age of 92. This was reported by the French news agency AFP with reference to the granddaughter Daphne Rotcajg.
Regine interpreted, for example, chansons by Serge Gainsbourg and Barbara, and also recorded albums. She has performed in legendary concert halls such as the Paris Olympia and Carnegie Hall in New York. In the cinema she was once seen in “Le Train – Just a touch of happiness” by Pierre Granier-Deferre alongside Romy Schneider and in “The Bribes” (originally “Les Ripoux”) by Claude Zidi.
Owner of numerous nightclubs
In addition to her career as a singer, she began to open her first nightclubs such as “Le New Jimmy’s” in Paris’s Montparnasse district and “Chez Regine” not far from the Champs-Elysees.
According to AFP, she is said to have owned up to 22 discos and clubs around the world. The writer Francoise Sagan (“Bonjour tristesse”) once described the singer and club owner as the “queen of our sleepless nights”.
Regine was born on December 26, 1929 as Regina Zylberberg in Anderlecht, Belgium. Her parents, of Polish-Jewish descent, moved to Paris just a few years following her birth.
