Odette Laure was born in Paris on February 28, 1917, and began singing a realistic repertoire in her parents' Café des Arts. After meeting actor Ramon Novarro, she was cast in Charles Lecocq's operetta La Fille de Madame Angot. In 1950, she made her simultaneous stage debut in Marc-Cab and Serge Veber's musical Il faut marier maman, and her film debut in Marcel Carné's La Marie du Port, then began recording for RCA in 1954. Busy with her many roles, Odette Laure appeared in Jacques Loew's Si ça vous chante (1951), Robert Siodmark's Le Grand Jeu (1952) and sang in Jacqueline Audry's Mitsou (1956). She scored her first hits with "Le Tango immobile" (1954), "Tout ça parc'qu'au bois de Chaville" (1955), "Moi j'tricote" (1955), "Chandernagor " (1957) and Édith Piaf's "Mon manège à moi " (1958), alternating a realistic, left-bank repertoire with light, even naughty tunes in the albums Le Petit Carnet d'Odette Laure (1953), Le Petit Officier de Marine (1955) and Quand Il Se Trimballe (1961). After Jean Delannoy's Guinguette and Georges Jaffé's Nuits de Pigalle in 1959, the actress alternated between boulevard plays and repertory roles, including Boudu sauvé des eaux (1967), Le noir te va si bien (1972), La Dame de Chez Maxim (1976), La Ménagerie de Verre by Tennessee Williams, for which she won the Prix Dussane in 1977, and Joyeuses Pâques (1980 to 1985). In 1976, she returned to operetta with Reynaldo Hahn's Ciboulette at the Opéra-Comique (Paris). Although she gave up singing, Odette Laure returned to the cinema in Pierre Tchernia's Le Viager (1972), then went on to star in Bertrand Tavernier's Daddy nostalgie (1990) and Yves Robert's Le Bal des casse-pieds (1992), Pascal Thomas's La Dilettante (1999) and Alexandre Jardin's Le Prof (2000), her last role, between numerous television appearances. The multi-talented artist died on June 10, 2004 at the age of 87.
