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After two years away from the stage, Amanda Lear returns through May 5, 2024, taking on the role of Bette Davis in L’argent de la vieille. This play, inspired by a funny Italian comedy from the 1970s, tells the story of an explosive-tempered elderly billionaire who takes pleasure in ruining those around her. It’s an opportunity for us to revisit Amanda Lear’s history: from her beginnings as the muse of the legendary painter, Salvador Dali, to her successes as a singer and actress that led her to become a celebrated cultural icon.
Amanda Lear As a Billionaire Viper
At the Théâtre Libre, anything goes: laughter, dirty tricks, money and vices… Amanda Lear appears as an elderly billionaire who promises her fortune to whoever defeats her on her travels. The doomed couple: Jean-Luc and Pierrette, prepare every year to claim "the old woman’s money." Their clever, mischievous daughter will do everything to help them trick the billionaire and her butler.
"Scathing" or "Diabolically brilliant" the French press is unanimous: Amanda Lear’s return is a hit! After two years away, the cultural icon still charms…
Fruitful Artistic Collaborations
Having become a star of music and television, Amanda Lear began her career as a muse for Salvador Dali, whom she met thanks to the fashion designer Paco Rabanne. In the 1960s, the Spanish painter falls for the young androgynous woman, still a student at the Fine Arts. He invites her into his world and Amanda Lear discovers the show business environment in which she feels at ease. She decides she wants to make her place there, something that did not please Salvador Dali, who ended their relationship shortly after that episode.
She later drew public attention in 1973 by posing for the cover of Roxy Music’s album For Your Pleasure, which led to a romance with David Bowie and allowed her to enter the music world. He encouraged her by paying for her singing lessons. She also had passionate affairs with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones during her time in England.
Blessed with a deep, mysterious, and sensual voice, Amanda Lear met immediate success as a disco singer in continental Europe, in Scandinavia and especially in London during her early career. Her first producers were the La Bionda brothers. Between the 1970s and 1980s, she enjoyed great success as a singer on the Munich record label Arjola Records collaborating with composer Anthony Moon.
Her first four albums were successful, reaching the top 10 best-sellers in France. She has released more than fifteen studio albums and over sixty singles.
Multilingual Woman Rooted In Different Countries
Since the 1980s, Amanda Lear has divided her time among music, television, film, painting and writing. Multilingual, she took part in various entertainment projects in France, in Germany and in Italy thanks to Silvio Berlusconi, serving as host, co-host or jury member on popular shows. But after her various successes, what became of Amanda Lear? From 2000 on, she focused her attention on theater and regularly performed as an actress in successful plays. In total, seven plays including La Divina in 2014 and La Candidate in 2017.
Video unavailableMysteries And Ambiguities
A mysterious woman, Amanda Lear, whose real name is Amanda Tap, keeps her origins secret. It is impossible to know her birth date or her ancestry, everyone wonders how old Amanda Lear is. The only certainty: the 84-year-old actress lives in Saint-Étienne-du-Grès near Avignon. Born in the mid-20th century, likely in Indochina to a Franco-English father and a supposedly Russo-Asian mother, Amanda Lear grew up in the Swinging Sixties.
Rumors about Amanda Lear’s transsexuality have always surfaced in the media. Accused by singer Régine, by Dali’s biographer or even by Franco’s niece of being a man, the singer has always toyed with these claims and no proof to the contrary has ever been revealed.
Ultimately, the persona she crafts fascinates, almost more than her artistic activities.
Remarkable Longevity
"When you have too much freedom, everything becomes possible and ultimately, we are not happy." A free woman, Amanda has always made her own choices: sometimes actress, sometimes a fashion muse. The pretty blonde posed for Yves Saint-Laurent or Paco Rabanne in metal dresses and graced the covers of many magazines like Newlook. Amanda Lear wears the miniskirt of Mary Quant even into the puritan states of the United States and even did advertising. The icon walked for Thierry Mugler and her friend Jean-Paul Gaultier. Follow Me, one of her best-known songs, was even chosen in 2023 for the new global campaign for Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel.
Sovereign of disco who continues to shine today through both music and theater, Amanda Lear is a woman free of labels, resourceful, who continues to inspire entire generations. She has never stopped reinventing herself and follows in the footsteps of great theater ladies like Jacqueline Maillan, more academic actresses. But the icon knows how to please and continues to surprise at her advanced age.
We eagerly await what’s next…