Born on May 20: Elsa Lunghini, the chrysalis that turned into a butterfly

Born in Paris in 1973, Elsa Lunghini began her career very young. At the age of 7, she played her first role in the film "Garde à vue" by Claude Sauter alongside Claude Brasseur and Romy Schneider. Not bad for a start! It's worth mentioning that being the niece of Marlène Jobert does open doors...

From Brigitte Bardot to Jane Birkin, and from Isabelle Adjani to Gabrielle Lazure, examples of actresses who become singers, either dilettantly or with more persistence, are plentiful. Elsa follows the same path, as she performed her first song "T’en vas pas..." in 1986 for the film "La femme de ma vie". With this refrain composed by Romano Musumarra (the man behind Jeanne Mas’s success) that brought tears to households in France and beyond, she immediately reached the top spot on the charts. In the continuation of her career, she followed up with openly romantic songs like "Mon cadeau" or "Un roman d’amitié" (a duet with Glenn Medeiros). In 1992, the title song of her third album "Bouscule-moi" (very likely partly autobiographical) marked the beginnings of a welcome emancipation. The young girl was becoming a woman...

Although the same success wasn’t to be repeated, Elsa now takes up the pen to write her song texts, notably on the 2004 album "De lave et de sève", on which Etienne Daho, Benjamin Biolay, Hubert Mounier (L’Affaire Louis Trio) and Keren Ann collaborated. It’s undoubtedly her best album.

Although Elsa Lunghini now mainly dedicates herself to cinema, TV movies, and sometimes even theatre, she hasn’t abandoned music and continues to hone a more mature writing style. She sometimes records luminous covers such as "The Funeral" by Band of Horses in 2015, "Sick of Goodbyes" in tribute to Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse, or the very dark "You Don’t Love Me (No, no, no)" that would fit well in the credits of a Jim Jarmush film. From "T’en vas pas" to today, what a journey! since 1981!

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Elsa (not yet Lunghini) on stage at Forest-National in Brussels (Belgium) in December 1990