Marie France

A short summary of Marie France's book:  Elle était une fois

by Jade, from Belgium

Marie France was born February 9 1946, in Oran, then in French Algeria. Her father was working in the Algerian railway company. She felt feminine very early, at the same time attracted by boys and fascinated by the beauty of women. She had also a strong complicity with her grand mother who was her first confident of her desire to be a girl and recognised that she would be a lovely one.

An important step in Marie France's childhood were her vacations in Paris in 1960, when she spend a few weeks in her mother’s family. She had a first contact with the life of Saint Germain and Pigalle and the wild life there. When she came back to Algeria, in the trouble time of the end of the French colony, she started to play with her androgynous look and even start to dress when away from home. She attracted the interest of many young French soldiers with whom she had sweet and innocent relations.

In 1962, her family moved to France, close to Paris. She started working as a hair dresser, but a quiet life did not satisfy her. All her friends were living during the night, she managed quickly to join them, going back to her parents just in time not to worry them. She had her first love, and her first problems. Her parents moved to the south west of France, leaving her alone for a short time: she was arrested in Pigalle during a police raid, where she was taken as a prostitute. She had then to join her parents until 1964, when she finally came back to Paris and became Marie-France: Marie following the name of her mother and France, the country where she was now living.

She then had the chance to be introduced in the French underground culture and met many artists. Her fragility and her ambiguity, her appeal for life attracted the attention of many of them and enabled her to start an artistic career. She touched all fields, theatre, song, cabaret, cinema and had successes in all of them. Her first great success was at the cabaret “l’Alcazar” with Jean-Marie Rivière, where she participated to the show at many occasions, being one the star, with outstanding reviews from the critics.  Her appearance as Marylin is still famous today. She also appeared in a few plays, applauded by the critics and the publics but too marginal to run for a long time. She was even chosen by Marguerite Duras to play with two famous French actors in one of Duras’s creation. She knew everyone who counts in the artistic milieu, she has been photographed several times by the famous Pierre and Gilles, as Marylin but also as Marie France.

Unfortunately, until the end of the 70’s, she was too impulsive to have the career that she deserved. She had also a strong drug problem, which was close to kill her, until she had the strength to overcome it.

A lucky event in her life was that when she confessed to her parents that she felt she is a girl and had decided to live as a girl, they both accepted it, her mother in 1965, her father two years later. She had her corrective surgery only in 1985 and was finally able to obtain official recognition of her sex.

Today, she is mainly singing, with a delicate and charming voice. She has also written a book full of feelings of souvenirs, very touching for anyone having also a sex identity problem.

See Marie France's website at:  http://www.mariefranceweb.com/