Chantal Goya

by Jason Ankeny
French pop icon Chantal Goya was born Chantal Deguerre in Saigon on October 10, 1946. Raised in Paris from the age of four onward, as a teen she befriended songwriter Jean-Jacques Debout, and at his recommendation auditioned for RCA Records in 1964. With her debut single, "C'est Bien Bernard," Goya emerged as a superstar of yé-yé pop, continuing her hit streak with a series of Debout-penned smashes including "A la Sortie de Ma Classe," "D'abord Dis-Moi Ton Nom," and "Comment le Revoir." In 1966 Goya was cast as an up-and-coming pop sensation in filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin Feminin. During shooting, she became pregnant with Debout's child, and the couple wed soon after. Her singing career waned as the popularity of yé-yé diminished, and after 1967's "La Flamme et le Feu" Goya disappeared from the French charts. During the 1970s, she reinvented herself as a children's singer, releasing a series of LPs that proved wildly popular with the under-five set; in 2001, she made an unexpected return to the French Top 40 with "Becassine Is My Cousine," also a major club hit.