Mitsou is a Juno Award-winning pop singer from Quebec City, Canada, where she was born as "Mitsou Gélinas" on September 1, 1970. A child actress, she starred in the Canadian TV show Terre Humaine from 1979 to 1981, then began singing as a teenager. She released her debut album, 1988's El Mundo, at 18 years old. El Mundo went platinum in Canada and featured the single "Bye Bye Mon Cowboy," which reached Number 1 in Quebec and remained atop the charts for six weeks. "Les Chinois," a second hit from the same album, reached Number 2. Mitsou's second album, Terre des Hommes, was released in 1990 and earned another Number 1 hit with "Lettre à un Cowboy." The same year, Mitsou won her first Juno Award for "Most Promising Female Vocalist." She returned to the Juno Awards ceremony in 1992, this time winning awards for "Best Female Artist" and "Best Music Video." 1992 also saw her releasing two albums: the self-titled Mitsou, which was targeted to English speakers, and the remix album Heading West. Now hailed as a sex symbol, Mitsou launched a parallel film career that found her starring in movies like Coyote and Prince Lazure during the 1990s, while also releasing albums like 1993's Tempted, 1994's Ya Ya, and 1995's Christmas-themed Noël. Although she continued releasing singles until the early 2010s, Mitsou gradually focused less and less on her music career, shifting instead to a new career as a television host of various Canadian programs.
