His hoarse and singular voice will be missed by the French variety. On the night of July 18 to 19, singer Dani died at the age of 77, her manager Lambert Boudier announced this Tuesday morning to AFP. Information confirmed by its producer with RTL, part “active and happy”, as indicated by the music journalist Steven Bellery on Twitter.
The flagship icon of the yéyés years, Danièle Graule, her real name, died of “following a heart attack” at her home located in the Tours region, specifies Le Parisien. The eldest of a family of three children, she was born on October 1, 1944 in Castres to a shoemaker father and a shoe saleswoman mother. As she left Perpignan to go to Paris in the 1960s, the young woman would know a thousand and one lives in her career.
Upon her arrival in the capital, Dani took her first steps in modeling. “When I started out, I was totally unconscious. Hoping to pose for fashion photos, I knocked on the door of Jours de France, the only magazine we read in Perpignan with Elle. I wouldn’t dare not do it today?”, she confided in 2016 to AFP, according to her remarks relayed by Le Point. “At the time, things were not as framed as today. It was a generous time, where things were moving towards freedom”.
A leading personality at social events, the model rubbed shoulders with stars like Jimi Hendrix and partied at the Café de Flore, La Rhumerie, Castel and the Publicis drugstore. In the mid-1960s, Dani roamed the film sets where she landed a few roles in film and television. She filmed for François Truffaut in 1974 (The American Night, Oscar for Best Foreign Film) and 1979 (Love on the Run) or Claude Chabrol in 1988 (A Women’s Affair).
In the 1970s, the actress and magazine leader Dani made a career in song by publishing two 33s and many 45s. She is also chosen to defend our colors at Eurovision. First, in 1974 with Life at twenty-five, but France withdrew from the competition after the tragic disappearance of the President of the Republic Georges Pompidou. Then the following year with the song Comme un boomerang written by Serge Gainsbourg. But, the judges ruled it out because of the lyrics deemed controversial for the time.
In the trough of the wave during the 80s, Dani recounts his descent into hell in his bookDrogue la galère, published in 1987 by Michel Lafon editions. A book where she pours out without filter on this sulphurous period. “I was lucky once again to be well surrounded. It’s very hard to get rid of artificial paradises. Drugs are like a toboggan, without knowing if it will be good or not on arrival “, she assures our colleagues.
It was not until the 2000s that Dani made a triumphant return to the music scene, thanks to Etienne Daho who accompanied him in a duet on his hit Comme un boomerang. “Etienne chose the songs, like jewels. He is my little brother. I can’t do anything without talking to him about it. His look is fair, his advice is precious”, she recalls about the artist who breathed new life into his career.
Upon her arrival in Paris, the model Dani met, in 1963, Benjamin Auger, a renowned photographer who worked for the magazine Salut les buddies. A meeting between the two protagonists which turned into love at first sight. “I met him by chance in the street. He looked at me and said, ‘Are you okay?’ she said in the pages of Gala in 2013.
At the time in a relationship and father of a son Emmanuel, the photographer plays on his charm and makes himself desired by the actress, before surprising her. “One afternoon, just before I went to a photo shoot for ELLE, he was downstairs from my house. I didn’t go to my appointment, I took him upstairs and we stayed eight days at the bed“, she continued with our colleagues.
From their union, Dani and Benjamin Auger welcome their son Julien born in 1969. But, the singer will be humiliated by the repeated deceptions of her husband, even during their pregnancy. After twenty years together, the couple separated in the mid-1980s without divorcing. Despite the end of their relationship, the singer remained on good terms with her ex-husband until his disappearance in 2002.
Ten years later, with France Sunday, the artist with the rocky voice poured out on their couple. “Benjamin was not the only man in my life, but certainly the man of a lifetime! We lived a passionate story that we knew how to evolve without cheating, without lying”, before adding. “Beyond physical love, we were friends, admiring each other. Benjamin was my lover, my husband, but above all, my friend. […] When he left , I held his hand.
Never stingy with confidences, in her texts as in her speeches, Dani also confided in her role as a mother and adoptive mother. “Emmanuel (Benjamin’s son, editor’s note) came into my life when he was only four months old. I raised him like my son, and for him to stay with me, I needed that there is a “sealed” link between us. So we had to have another child with Benjamin”, said the artist in 2016 for Gala. “But my inner machine struggled to get going, Julien only arrived five years later. There was no jealousy”.
If the agreement has always been in good shape between her two boys despite their different characters, the star who became a grandmother regretted not having them so often. “I cry every day because I don’t see them enough […] It’s the only place where I feel like a grandma, they take care of me as if I were bedridden”.
After a successful musical comeback in the 2000s, Dani continued his musical career and marked several generations of fans. However, the singer admitted to having gone through financial difficulties, claiming to be broke in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche in 2020.
“I don’t have any more money. It’s more comfortable! When I had any, it bothered me. Houses, papers… When my husband died, I decided not to clutter rather than black out the memories we shared. That’s how we move on, we make friends with grief. Now my life is my bag. I go where I want,” said -she at the JDD. Preferring then to part with her property, the singer had left the capital to settle in Tours in a rental. “Two days before confinement, I visited an apartment. The next day, I moved in. And my son ordered me: “From now on, you don’t go out anymore!”.
Discreet in her last years in the media, the actress made a few appearances on television, in 2017 in Capitaine Marleau (France TV) and Le temps est assassin (TF1) in 2019, and in the cinema in Bronx by Olivier Marchal. On the music side, the artist ended his tour after releasing his last album Golden Horizons in 2020, and was preparing his return with a new title, I was right, as revealed at noon RTL.
