Place Dalida: The Singer of Montmartre

Why is it significant?

Stop in the little cobbled square where rue de l'Abreuvoir meets rue Girardon, and turn to look back the way you came: the street drops away between old houses and garden walls, and above the trees floats the white dome of the Sacré-Cœur. Now turn around and meet the woman in bronze.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stop in the little cobbled square where rue de l'Abreuvoir meets rue Girardon, and turn to look back the way you came: the street drops away between old houses and garden walls, and above the trees floats the white dome of the Sacré-Cœur. Now turn around and meet the woman in bronze.

The bust is Dalida, one of the biggest stars French song has ever known. She was born Iolanda Gigliotti in Cairo in 1933, to Italian parents; her father was first violinist at the Cairo opera house. After being crowned Miss Egypt in 1954 she came to Paris hoping to act, and became a singer instead. Bambino made her famous in 1956, and she sang in many languages, from Italian and Arabic to German and Hebrew, moving from chanson to disco without ever losing her audience.

She lived just around the corner, in a house on rue d'Orchampt, from 1962 until the end of her life. Behind the glamour lay a chain of tragedies: several of the men she loved took their own lives, and on the night of 2 to 3 May 1987, so did she, leaving a note saying that life had become unbearable, and asking to be forgiven. She was fifty-four. Her grave lies in the Montmartre cemetery, which you will reach later on this walk.

The bust was made by the sculptor Aslan and unveiled in 1997, when the square was given her name. Look at it closely and you will see that parts of the bronze have been rubbed bright gold by thousands of hands. Somewhere along the way a superstition took hold that touching it brings luck in love. Her fans find it disrespectful, the visitors keep doing it, and the shine keeps growing... a strange little monument to the distance between a legend and a woman.

Now walk south along rue Girardon. Within a few steps, on the small Place Marcel-Aymé, a man is climbing out of a stone wall, his arm and his anxious face poking through. He is Dutilleul, the clerk from Marcel Aymé's wartime story Le Passe-Muraille, who discovers he can walk through walls and ends up stuck in one forever. The writer lived in the building behind, and the statue was sculpted in 1989 by the actor Jean Marais. Then carry on down to rue Lepic and the windmill on the corner.