Michel Polnareff — singer with roots in the Russian Empire
Michel Polnareff was born in Nérac, in the Lot-et-Garonne, on 3 July 1944, and grew up in Paris in a household of performers. His mother, Simonne Lane, was a dancer from Brittany. His father, Leib Polnareff, had been born in Odessa in 1899, in the Russian Empire, and reached Paris in 1923.
In Paris the father worked at first as a song plugger, demonstrating new songs at the piano, and took the professional name Léo Poll. He became a well-known accompanist, playing for Édith Piaf and Charles Trenet, composed and arranged songs, published some of his own work and led his own orchestra. He died in 1988.
Michel learned the piano from the age of five and was educated at the Cours Hattemer, a private school in Paris. After military service and a brief job in insurance he took up the guitar and played on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre. His first single, "La Poupée qui fait non" (1966), became his best-known song and has been recorded many times since, including by Mylène Farmer and Khaled in 1996. Through the late 1960s and early 1970s he was among the most successful performers in France, with a flamboyant stage image and songs such as "Holidays" (1972).
In 1973, after the death of his mother and the discovery that his manager had left with his money, he was unable to pay his debts and moved to the United States, where he lived away from public view. His only English-language album, Fame à la Mode, was released in 1975. He continued to record from abroad, and Kama-Sutra (1990) was his last original album for almost three decades.
He returned to live performance in 1995 with a concert at the Roxy in Los Angeles, published an autobiography, Polnareff par Polnareff, in 2004, and on 14 July 2007 gave a free concert on the Champ de Mars in Paris that was reported to have drawn more than 600,000 people. The 2007 concerts were his first in France since he had left in 1973. A new album, Enfin!, appeared in 2018, followed in 2022 by Polnareff chante Polnareff, piano-and-voice versions of his earlier songs.
"Odessa to Paris, 1923 (father)"
Migration storyTracing the roots — Odessa
His father, Leib Polnareff, was born in Odessa in 1899, in the Russian Empire, and reached Paris in 1923, where he worked as a pianist under the name Léo Poll.
Son of Leib Polnareff (1899–1988), born in Odessa, who reached Paris in 1923 and became the pianist and composer Léo Poll, accompanist to Édith Piaf and Charles Trenet.
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Odessa. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.