Has Line Renaud been hampered in her acting career by her husband Loulou Gasté? If we know her more for her career as a singer or as a magazine leader, it is important to remember that Line Renaud is also a great actress. A career on which she returns in the book Line Renaud, a life of comedy, co-written with her friend Jérémy Picard and released on November 3.
A career as an actress who has long been somewhat prevented by her husband Loulou Gasté, according to Line Renaud’s own revelations. “After L’Increvable, I had to wait thirty years to find a film set. It is true that in the 60s and 70s, I was totally taken up by my career as a reviewer, multiplying the shows between Paris and Las Vegas. But, to be completely honest, the film proposals did not jostle”, she explains in the book which collects her secrets about her life and her friends in the cinema.
Line Renaud
A crossing of the desert on the screens which is not foreign to her husband, and she only learned about it very recently. “I admit that I did not understand why, I had proven myself in front of the camera, I was popular and popular screenwriters or dialogue writers were full of praise for me. […] was expecting to be distributed in the comedies of the time. Nothing came of it. It was not until much later that I learned, almost by chance, that Loulou, who was also my manager, imposed that the music be composed films in which I was likely to play”, reveals the interpreter of My cabin in Canada. She explains that for the directors, an ultimatum was imposed on them at the time: “if they wanted Line Renaud, they had to take Loulou Gasté”. A requirement that may have cost him many roles. “For many producers and directors, it was prohibitive. All of them already had their appointed composer, who followed them from film to film”, she admits.
However, Line Renaud has no regrets about her career, nor resentment towards her husband. “I have no regrets. If I had made a few films in those years, would I have had the same career in the music hall? I don’t think so. Although very different, these two disciplines require a commitment total”, relativizes the actress, who does not wish to make controversy.
Jérémy Picard, author of Line Renaud, a comedy life.
An opinion shared by Jérémy Picard, author of the book Line Renaud, a life of comedy. He recalls that Line Renaud “left the song for the review which was incredibly time-consuming”. In the 60s and 70s, Line stayed away from the studios, devoting herself fully to this new discipline. “When she did a review, it was for 4 years without vacation, or break. Whether in Paris or Las Vegas, for 20 years she was in a whirlwind and anyway if she had wanted to make films, she wouldn’t have had time to do it”, assures the theater enthusiast. According to him, “she would have had to choose between the cinema and the review”. Jérémy Picard assures on this subject that Line Renaud “loved his years of review and has no regrets”.
Regarding the fact that her husband Loulou Gasté imposes to make the music of the films in which she appeared, it was according to him “not incredible” at the time. “In the films of the 1950s, almost all the music and all the songs are by Loulou Gasté. Even when the films did not do very well, the songs were hits, as is the case for Les jupons de Lison”, he explains. Jérémy Picard considers that he was a very good composer but that often “the directors had their own composers with whom they worked from film to film”. He therefore recognizes that “it was probably a brake on her acting career in those years”, but assures that “even if Loulou Gasté had not done it, she probably would not have had time to shoot since she was very busy with the magazine”. This will not prevent Line Renaud from returning to cinema and theater much later with roles ranging from tragic to comic, with his friend Dany Boon in Bienvenue ches les Ch’tis.
