1965 When the time comes (and it often does) to violate the rules of school attendance, I jump on bus 68 running from Porte d’Orléans to Place de Clichy. No one of course knows where I have disappeared and certainly not my folks. Silence is much better than shame.
My father’s company has just been selected to replace the old sound system of the cabaret LE LIDO, on the Champs Elysees, by a new one and, every now and then, my dad takes me with him to this wonderful place, dropping me by an arm chair just a few yards from the Bluebell girls changing room, and insisting that I should not move until he is ready to go home. The Blubell Girls are elite dancers belonging to a world-famous dance company managed by Margaret Kelly, herself a former dancer from the FOLIE-BERGERE who decided to go her own way and created her dance company in 1932 when she reached the age of twenty-two.
I certainly will not move, under any circumstances as It is that time of the day when the girls will be rehearsing for the same evening’s shows and I really have the best seat to admire the beauty of these dancing women and discover that underneath their colorful ostrich feathers, they do not wear… much.
Going to LE LIDO is all fine, but after a while I find it much better to spend time strolling in the north of Paris. Having been unsuccessful at sneaking in the various cabaret of the Montparnasse area , I now choose to try my luck in PIGALLE, a tourist attraction just a few yards away from the SACRE-CŒUR, close to MONTMARTRE, a weird area where the maffia runs its business. Gambling, prostitution, cocaïne, racket and contraband cigarettes are activities commonly split between, Corsicans, Marseille hoodlums, gangsters coming from Saint-Etienne . Underworld characters often have a professional nickname. In these late 60,s. It is the era of Jimmy Mignon (north-African owner of several bordellos) Fernand Bernard (nicknamed for god knows what reason Louis d’Auteuil) or Edouard Ternier (nicknamed trucker). Because the maffia has its own codes of conduct, a few selected folks conducting justice of peace when conflicts between gangs are on the rise, are in charge of the various geographical sectors of Paris. The Panzani brothers and Jo Attia will operate in Pigalle while André Stora and Sion Atlan, two maffiosi from jewish families will do the same in the Faubourg Montmartre area where Marcel Francisci and the Zemmour brothers run gambling operations.
Memories of a time past. I can still remember all of my escapes from the Lycée Montaigne…
The 68 bus chugs up the rue de Clichy and on the return leg, will use the Rue Blanche. Shortly before the terminus, the bus runs across the Clichy Billiard Academy where petty thieves spend their days surrounded by white and red billiard balls rolling on green baize. After alighting from the bus, I will need to walk for 850 meters through Rue de Douai and make a left turn on Rue Duperré. 850 meters to go from virtue to debauchery, far, far away from Saint Pierre de Montrouge and the 14th district !
This is Pigalle, with its little streets surrounding Pigalle Square. Rue Frochot, rue Victor Massé, ladies-of-the-night, and for that matter also ladies-of-the-day conducting business in front of, or inside shady bars. Cabarets and night clubs, all of them with a doorman clad in gilded outfit, attracting more tourists than parisians. The Nouvelle Eve, the Sphinx, Tabarin, names from the past for most of them, names from and era gone by. Posters with half naked women, half dressed men, red and pink neon lights, it’s just like if I am drowning in the excess of lights. I get confused, not knowing where to go first. Everyone knows why one comes to Pigalle but no one will ever admit being there on purpose. Nobody cares, I can see it after all, so why not go and visit one of the places were girls like Lolo-Pigalle, Frédé Gueule d’Ange (angelface) or Chloé de Saint-Amour (“holy love”, a fake name of course) will « strip and tease » me, for us , for all of the boys, all of the men.
Sad place, where is the joy ? where is the pleasure of sneaking inside ? Where is the flavor ? If one side of the Pigalle area is suppose to glorify the female body, the other side is more direct to the point. Cheap hotels housing cheap ladies and allowing for limited encounters with warm champaign and an unpleasant smell of disinfectant. In summer, ladies in stiletto shoes and fishnet stockings smoke by the door of Hotel de Douai (room by the hour, by the night, by the day) or Hotel Victor Massé (tout confort).
Regularly, vice-squad police busts take place in the area with all the required equipment ranging from black and white paddywagons, to the 11 CV Citroen Traction-Avant car, with an excess of uniformed «agents de police » under the command of men in beige trench-coats wearing a fedora. Police inspectors, who know the real name of each girl working in each place will often have a drink with the owner of the busted place, hardly after the girls have been set on their way to Saint-Lazare, the detention center for females. At this time, cops and maffiosi still have respect for each other and a word given is often a good way to solve issues. Every now and then, guns do speak. Here , a friend of the Panzani brothers is killed in front of the « Laetitia » bar while there, one of the five Zemmour brothers, is shot at. Maffiosi blood drips in the Paris gutter and journalists will have the night to prepare the next morning front page with huge titles such as MAFFIA WAR IN PIGALLE, CORSICANS vs MARSEILLAIS, or IS THE POLICE PROTECTING PARIS ?
Any young man strolling in summer through the Rue Frochot would know that the opportunities were there. The girls were all displaying their good spirit , their eyes attempting to meet yours: ”Hello honey, you buy me a drink ?” I hardly have the change to buy my but ticket for the return trip to Montrouge…
(The "Thélème" bar in Pigalle....gang wars are going on....I guess the corpses are inside....)
By the end of the sixties, there are no swinger clubs nor sex-toys available on the market or if so, it must be in some unknown place, confidential, hidden from the public. Besides sailors from the Navy or a few rockers, nobody wears a tattoo or a piercing, it’s just not done. It all came up later, in the 70’s, in the aftermath of a cultural and sexual “kind of a revolution”. During the late 60’s, one had simply to use imagination, possibly some handcuffs and rope, but that was it ! Besides a few room salons and pick-up places, there were also a few bars were the Paris underworld conducted mafia business including gambling, drugs or drafting plans to improve existing racketeering activities. Accessing these places was “on invitation only” and one would never know if one would get out alive! The Corsicans gangsters were very sensitive, the “black-feet” hoodlums very moody, the ruffians from Saint-Etienne sneaky and the mobsters from Marseille, aggressive.
Around the circular water fountain of the Place Pigalle, obstinate pigeons hurried up for a quick bath.
You know, In these days, Pigalle was a “conventionally non-conventional” place, nearly a family affair with clear limits established. Schoolboys would sneak-in hoping to get rid of an embarrassing virginity, tourists from other regions of France would simply hope for a souvenir photo taken at some reputable cabaret with girls and ostrich feathers, Parisian males hoped for an unexpected encounter in a small restaurant, goons on the run looked for a clandestine game of cards expecting to win some money, while soldiers on leave would simply get their eyes full of colours and images never to be forgotten. Everyone knew its place and things were just fine this way. G7 taxi cabs would drop their foreign tourists on their way to “reasonable debauchery” .
(The Billiard academy on rue de Clichy...petty hoodlums and pimps would spend the day there and wait for the evening to collect their "girls" day's take...)
A few hundred meters away, the memory of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in his workshop on rue Fontaine appealed to those loving this great painter and his female models Jane Avril or “La Goulue”. Needless to say that only few remembered Henri’s end of life, at 37, defeated by brandy, absinthe and above all syphilis.
It was time for me to return home so I would stroll back to the head station of the 68 bus line, on Place de Clichy, walking along the boulevard, passing by Place Blanche and Restaurant Wepler, a high- standard place serving a large array of seafood. I needed time to prepare myself for the transition, for the change, for the return to virtue and good manners. In my head, I would put up a veil on the naked dancer of rue Victor Massé and lock-up lust until the next time. The 68 bus would start-up its journey southward through rue Blanche and would pass-by the Trinity church, less than half a mile away from the licentiousness of Pigalle.
Meanwhile, Roland, Théodore, William, Edgar and Gilbert Zemmour would be finalizing the next episode of their gang war.
( The "Lizeux", a bar belonging to the Vinceleoni brothers, famous Corsican hoodlums)