PARIS -- Popular French singer Lucienne Boyer, nicknamed 'Madame Parlez-moi d'Amour' after her greatest hit, died Tuesday of a brain hemorrhage, family members said. She was 80.
She had continued singing until two weeks before her death.
Born in Paris in 1903, Miss Boyer made her debut at the age of 16 in the smoky post World War I cabarets of the French capital. She crooned her way to celebrity with the low, sensuous and prize-winning 'Parlez moi d'amour' recording of 1930.
She continued singing in France during World War II, despite offers from American film producers seduced by her performance on Broadway in 1929.
A successful artist and buisnesswoman, Boyer opened several cabarets in Paris in the 1940s and 1950s.
Her popularity faded as rock music swept France, but she again captured public attention at 60 following reports of an affair with a 17-year-old hairdresser.
In a tribute to the cabaret singer's half-century career, Bruno Coquatrix, director of Paris's most famous music hall, Olympia, officially declared her 'the perfect image of a Parisian woman.'
