Born Jacqueline Enté on 2 July 1928 in Nieppe, in the Nord department, she grew up in modest circumstances. She began singing at a very young age, performed on Radio-Lille under the name Jacqueline Ray and, after the war, set off for Paris. She was not yet twenty when an encounter was to turn her life on its head: that with the composer Louis ‘Loulou’ Gasté, who would become her mentor, her husband and the man with whom she would build much of her career.
It was he who played a key role in the emergence of Line Renaud. The name appeared, and then the songs followed: ‘Ma cabane au Canada’, ‘Ma P’tite Folie’, ‘Le Chien dans la vitrine’, ‘Étoile des neiges’… In post-war France, her voice and her smile became familiar to all.
But to reduce Line Renaud to French popular song would be to overlook one of the most astonishing aspects of her career.
From Paris to Las Vegas
By the 1950s, Line Renaud was already looking well beyond France’s borders. In 1954, she enjoyed a particularly triumphant run at the Moulin Rouge before embarking on a career in the United States. New York, Los Angeles, then Las Vegas: the French artist found herself at the heart of the American entertainment industry.
She became a revue star at the Casino de Paris in 1959 and then performed in Las Vegas between 1963 and 1965. There, she found herself in a world that today seems almost mythological: that of grand casinos, spectacular revues and international stars. Her connection with Las Vegas was strong enough for the city to make her an honorary citizen and name a street after her in 2017.
For a Frenchwoman born in a small town in the north in 1928, it was a dizzying journey.
And Line Renaud didn’t stop there.
Knowing how to change one’s life
One of the distinctive features of her career was her willingness to accept becoming a novice once again.
From her fifties onwards, she gradually moved away from singing and turned her attention to acting. She later explained that she knew it would take years for the public to accept this new identity.
Theatre, cinema, television: a second career began.
*Folle Amanda*, *Fugueuses*, numerous TV films and film roles enabled her to reach several new generations. The singer of the 1950s became a familiar face to audiences of the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and beyond.
This may well be one of the keys to her exceptional longevity in the public eye: Line Renaud never tried to remain exactly as she had been.
She has changed with the times.
The fight against AIDS
But her legacy extends far beyond the world of entertainment.
In 1985, at a time when the AIDS epidemic was still causing fear, misunderstanding and rejection, Line Renaud decided to take a stand. She had just returned from the United States, where she had witnessed the human toll of the epidemic and the campaign led by her friend Elizabeth Taylor. She helped to mobilise the French entertainment industry.
When the first Sidaction was organised in 1994, seven television channels broadcast the same programme simultaneously – an unprecedented feat at the time. Line Renaud remains one of the central figures in this campaign. She is now vice-president of Sidaction and describes the fight against AIDS as ‘the battle of my life’.
One must bear in mind the context of the time to appreciate what this commitment represented. In the 1980s, HIV was not merely a public health crisis: it was surrounded by considerable prejudice. Using her popularity to support those affected therefore also constituted a social statement.
A woman born in 1928, still going strong in 2026
This is probably what makes Line Renaud so unique today.
She was born before French television as we know it, before the Second World War, before the LP, and long before the internet and social media.
She experienced music hall, the heyday of radio, the great Parisian revues, the golden age of Las Vegas, the early days of mass television, and then contemporary cinema and television.
Almost eighty years in the public eye.
And behind this longevity lies one constant: hard work. In an interview with Jacques Chancel in 1970, Line Renaud was already explaining that a career required constant thought and that she defined herself, above all, as a hard-working and conscientious person.
More than half a century later, this statement sheds considerable light on her entire career.
Line Renaud is not merely a survivor of French music hall.
She is one of the last great living links between several worlds of show business which, for today’s generations, already belong to history.
At the age of 98, her life still serves to link post-war Paris with Las Vegas, the grand revues with television sets, popular song with cinema, and entertainment with community involvement.
And perhaps that, ultimately, is what true artistic longevity is all about: not simply enduring, but managing to traverse the ages without becoming a prisoner of the era that made you famous.
