Régine, France’s self-proclaimed inventor of the nightclub, is dead. The chanson singer and operator of a nightclub empire from Paris to Los Angeles died peacefully in Paris on Sunday at the age of 92, as her granddaughter Daphné Rotcajg announced.
Régina Zylberberg was born on December 26, 1929 in Anderlecht to Polish-Jewish parents and narrowly escaped deportation in southern France in 1941. After the liberation of the French capital, her alcohol-loving father opened a nightclub there – for Régine, this was probably the starting signal for her career.
Their first restaurant opened in Paris in 1956. The legendary “Chez Régine” is described by her as well as by various other sources as the first nightclub in the world. In fact, the club was way ahead of its time when it came to technical matters: while jukeboxes were still common in ordinary dance bars, the “Chez Régine” already had disc jockeys and record players.
Over the years, Régine then built up a worldwide empire of 22 discos; ran nightclubs in Rio de Janeiro, New York, Los Angeles, Cairo, Kuala Lumpur and on the Düsseldorfer Kö. Her most famous establishments include the Palace in the City of Love and Regine’s in the Big Apple.
The intoxication of the high society
The international jet set in particular met there – the guests were handpicked: “I wanted counts and dukes – people with titles,” she once said to the “BBC”. And she got what she wanted: King Edward VIII learned to dance with her, she flew over an embassy ball with Prince Charles. Their guest lists included names like Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol and Liza Minnelli, as well as members of the Rothschild family and the Kennedys.
Régine was also known in France as a singer, inspiring chansonniers and chanteuses such as Serge Gainsbourg and Barbara. She was on the stages of the Paris music hall “Olympia”, the “Carnegie Hall” in New York and at the age of 86 she was still on the boards of the variety theater Folies-Bergère. Because of financial difficulties, she has had to sell her disco empire little by little since the early 1990s. But her legacy has remained.
