Juliette Gréco

The 20-year-old Gréco encountered Vian, Cocteau and Davis — with whom she had a long affair — at a Paris nightclub. She called Vian her “incestuous brother.” Queneau and Prévert wrote songs for her. She starred in Cocteau’s ‘Orphée’, sang with her idol Brassens, was taken back to her hotel on a motorcycle by Brando, and met Welles in Hollywood. Sartre, de Beauvoir and Camus were others she met in post-war Paris. She invited the young Gainsbourg to write for her, and was blunt with Michaux about his lyrics. Merleau-Ponty, in the vain hope of seducing her, threw gravel at her bedroom window.