This number – changed, enlarged and elaborated – was to become her signature tune and appeared in the many revues created around her by Petit, who calculated that she had descended the steps of the Casino de Paris 1,460 times. Zizi Jeanmaire played the provocative title role in the 1949 ballet “Carmen,” inspired by Bizet’s opera and choreographed by her husband-to-be Roland Petit. In 1952 Petit choreographed (at Howard Hughes’s request) Hans Christian Andersen for Zizi Jeanmaire and Danny Kaye; but his affairs with Rita Hayworth and Elizabeth Taylor caused an inevitable rift with his leading lady. Zizi Jeanmaire played the provocative title role in the 1949 ballet “Carmen,” inspired by Bizet’s opera and choreographed by her husband-to-be Roland Petit. “This pixieish performer, with her lacquered hair, gravelly voice and flat-out music-hall delivery, need but appear to transport us to the Folies Bergère,” Mr. Rich wrote. She made a full recovery, appeared in a further revue in 1977 and was on stage in her pointe shoes as the heroine of Petit’s ballet La Chauve-Souris in 1979. He continued to devise spectacles for his wife and she also made television appearances and recordings. She gave Petit an ultimatum: he must create a ballet for her or she would leave him.
Jeanmaire during a dress rehearsal for a revue in Marseille, France, in 1994. The Telegraph values your comments but kindly requests all posts are on topic, constructive and respectful. In 1956 Zizi was back in front of the cameras for the revue film Folies Bergères, and that year Petit made his first Paris stage revue for her. It was the start of a 78-year relationship, professional and private, that ended only on his death in 2011. At Petit’s request, Zizi Jeanmaire bobbed her hair short and wore a very brief black corset. She also appeared in his ballets, notably starring in a 1966 film of “Le Jeune homme et la mort,” with Nureyev; and with Mr. Baryshnikov in a 1980 television film of “Carmen.”, She was immortalized in 1969 by the hit song “Where Do You Go To (My Lovely),” in which Peter Sarstedt sang of his mystery heroine, “You talk like Marlene Dietrich, and you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire.”.
This took her career in a new direction. He had first had her sing in a ballet in 1950 in La Croqueuse de Diamants (The Gold Digger), in which her husky, suggestive voice had won her the Grand Prix du Disque award. After the successful London premiere, the company departed for the US. Boris Horvat/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. Over the next two decades, Petit created numerous revues for his wife, buying the Casino de Paris in 1970 as a showcase. Petit, who wanted to choreograph and direct his own company, followed soon after.