One of the greatest singers and fantasists of his time, Charles Armand Ménard alias Dranem recorded a large number of puns. Born in Paris on May 23, 1869, he learned the trade from his father, an artisan jeweler, and, interested in café-concert stars, joined a troupe of amateur comedians. After military service and a variety of jobs, he performed at the local Verrerie and found a stage name that was an anagram of his own name. Ménard became Dranem, who suffered several failures before being hired in 1884 at the Electric-Concert as a comic trouper "in the style of Polin", then moving on to the Concert Parisien. He found his style, with a jacket and pants that were too short, a small hat and large shoes without laces, and perfected his show, which drew crowds to the Eldorado (1899), where he performed for twenty years. Successes followed: "Les Petits pois" (1904), "Tu sens la menthe", "Pétronille" or the spoonerism "Le trou de mon quai" (1906), interspersed with monologues. He appeared in twelve "phonoscenes" directed by Alice Guy, and played Molière's Le Médecin malgré lui at the Théâtre de l'Odéon. After bidding farewell to the Eldorado in 1919, tenor Dranem turned to operetta, starring in Là-haut in 1923 with Maurice Chevalier, followed by Albert Willemetz's Trois jeunes filles nues (1925, with "Est-ce que je te demande si ta grand-mère fait du vélo"), Le Diable à Paris (1925), Louis XIV (1929), Encore cinquante centimes (1931) and Un soir de réveillon (1932). His career continued in the cinema, where he appeared in a dozen films until 1935. Named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1923, then Officier in 1935, the singer and actor died at the height of his fame at the Clinique de l'Alma in Paris on October 13, 1935, at the age of 66. He is buried at the Château de Ris-Orangis, his former estate in the town where he founded a retirement home for artists.
