Charles Trenet; French Singer and Songwriter

Legendary singer and songwriter Charles Trenet, whose fanciful ballads and poetic love songs captured the hearts of the French for more than six decades, has died of a stroke. He was 87.

Trenet, who wrote nearly 1,000 songs and gained world renown with the 1946 romantic ballad “La Mer,” popularized here as “Beyond the Sea” in Bobby Darin’s hit recording in 1960, died Sunday evening in a hospital in the southeast Paris suburb of Creteil.

Another international hit by the man playwright Jean Cocteau called France’s “last troubadour” was “Que Reste-Il de Nos Amours,” or “I Wish You Love.” That song solidified Trenet’s reputation as one of France’s greatest songwriters.

Singer Charles Aznavour, a close friend of Trenet’s, said he is mourning “the disappearance of a giant,” whose style paved the way for France’s great contemporary crooners: Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg.

“What we became is thanks to Trenet,” Aznavour told Europe-1 television.

Along with Aznavour, Trenet was often named with Yves Montand as a leading example of the French boulevardier style of singer. Known for his flashing smile, tilted-back hat and buttonhole carnation, Trenet blended images of fantasy and clever word plays into his songs.

President Jacques Chirac, who decorated Trenet in 1998 as a commander of the Legion of Honor--France’s highest civilian honor--called Trenet “a magician with words, an inventor of rhythms.”

Known as Le Fou Chantant (The Singing Fool or The Singing Madman), Trenet was a music hall veteran and a master of the special brand of poetic music known as la chanson francaise, which inspired generations of songwriters.

“I make songs like an apple tree makes apples,” Trenet once said. “They come from inside of me.”

Active until near his death, Trenet once told the New Yorker magazine: “I will go on singing until I see people running for the exits.”

He retired in 1971, but he loved the stage too much to stay away. He released a new album of 14 songs in 1999 and performed three sellout concerts at Paris’ Salle Pleyel.

Born May 18, 1913, in Narbonne, in southern France, Louis Charles August Claude Trenet wrote his first song at the age of 10. He studied art and design, published poetry and theater reviews and wrote novels, but in 1933 decided to focus on writing and performing his own songs.

He was drafted into military service in 1936, and wrote the sentimental, patriotic “Douce France” (Sweet France) while still in uniform in 1943.

When World War II ended, Trenet spent six years abroad, including several years in the United States. He bought an apartment in New York, near the Empire State Building, appeared in Broadway cabarets and befriended Louis Armstrong and Charlie Chaplin.

During that time, he also came to Hollywood briefly under contract to MGM and performed at Los Angeles’ old Philharmonic Auditorium to raise funds for French war orphans.

Trenet returned to France in 1951 and resumed a celebrated career that included five novels and lead roles in a dozen films.

A religious ceremony is planned Friday at Paris’ La Madeleine Church.