She Is More Than Johnny Depp’s Ex-Girlfriend
The jury for the 69th Cannes Film Festival has just been announced. I saw the headline yesterday morning and was a little confused:
Which ex-girlfriend of Depp? People usually name three:
Winona Ryder, who starred with Depp in Edward Scissorhands.
Supermodel Kate Moss—everyone has seen this photo.
And then there is Vanessa Paradis. Looking at the jury list, I realized she was the one they meant. Her name is often rendered in Chinese according to its English pronunciation, but the French pronunciation is closer to “va-neh-sa pa-ra-dee,” with the final s silent.
Vanessa and Depp got together in 1998 and split in 2012. They have a daughter, Lily-Rose Melody Depp—a beautiful name—and a son called John Depp III, a somewhat badass name.
Lily-Rose is in the middle of the photo above. Who do you think she looks more like? The mother and daughter look like sisters together.
Vanessa is only 43, although she has been in show business for more than 30 years if you count her first television appearance at age eight. In 1987, at 14, she became famous across Europe and America with her hit “Joe le Taxi.”
Watch the “Joe le Taxi” music video
Does it sound familiar? If you were born in the 1980s and have not heard the original, you have probably heard this next song.
The French and Cantonese lyrics mean roughly the same thing: they tell the story of a taxi driver named Joe who drives around picking up women. You can still hear the tune now and then at square-dancing sessions, since the lyrics call it a “rumba” (I know nothing about Latin dance).
“Joe le Taxi” became a huge hit across Europe and reached number three on the UK chart. Since Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s very risqué “Je t’aime… moi non plus” topped the UK chart in 1969, it was the best result for a French-language song in the English-speaking market.
Then, in 1989, at 16, Vanessa made her first film, Noce blanche (White Wedding).
The film might loosely be compared to the French version of July Rhapsody—no spoilers here. It does have one famous scene worth mentioning.
Why is it famous? Because of this graffiti:
The graffiti is in Furong Tunnel at Xiamen University. Quite a few people sought out the film after seeing it. Let’s take a look at Vanessa when she was young but not yet jaded.
Watch a clip from White Wedding
In 1990, Vanessa was planning her second album and already had lyrics from several popular songwriters. Then Serge Gainsbourg unexpectedly offered to write the lyrics and produce the album himself—and wrote more than a dozen songs in just five days. He was a perfectionist, though, and was still adjusting the rhymes in the recording studio. Vanessa had standards too: she dared to reject several lyrics by the music-world giant Gainsbourg and used only 11 of them.
The album’s release was delayed by a month. After they finished recording, Gainsbourg delivered a line that became famous for its double meaning, somewhere between praise and a put-down:
“Paradis, c’est l’enfer!”
Paradis—paradise—is hell! The French word paradis means “paradise.” What a brilliant pun. Gainsbourg was so clever!
It was a celebrated moment in French music and one last display of Gainsbourg’s songwriting genius. A few months later, he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 62.
Gainsbourg and Paradis at the 1990 Victoires de la Musique awards.
In 1990, Vanessa triumphed in both music and film. White Wedding won her the César Award—France’s “Oscar”—for Most Promising Actress. Gainsbourg’s album won her the Victoires de la Musique—France’s “Grammys”—for Female Artist of the Year.
Vanessa’s musical career has actually been far more successful than her film career. Since 1990, she has been nominated six times for Female Artist of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique and has won three times. In film, she was nominated for the César Award for Best Actress only once, for Patrice Leconte’s The Girl on the Bridge (2000). Her co-star Daniel Auteuil won Best Actor. Her performance in Café de Flore (2012) was also excellent, but it did not bring her a major award.
A still from The Girl on the Bridge.
She had two chances that might have made her even more famous. In 2000, Jean-Pierre Jeunet asked her to star in Amélie, but she was working on a new album and turned it down. In 2001, Carla Bruni brought her several songs, but Vanessa found the lyrics too personal and turned down the woman who would later become France’s first lady. Bruni sang them herself, and her classic album Quelqu’un m’a dit was born.
As for her Chanel ads and the gossip about Depp, Baidu has already said enough. Just remember that she is more than Depp’s ex-girlfriend.
Finally, here is a video that may bring a true French-film fan to tears.
Watch Vanessa Paradis sing at Cannes in 1995
This was Cannes’s most moving moment in 1995. Jeanne Moreau, then 67, was president of the festival jury. The festival surprised her by having Vanessa sing “Le Tourbillon de la vie,” the song Moreau had performed 33 years earlier in Jules et Jim.
Correction to the previous article: Tang Xianzu was born more than ten years before Shakespeare, not in the same year.