A new star is born.

"If you don't believe there's a price
For this sweet paradise
Remind me to show you the scars."

- Where Are You Tonight, Bob Dylan (1978)

Vanessa's sin is her precocity. So much charisma, talent, and knowledge (self-knowledge, the most important kind) so early on, and in so small a body, disconcerts, disturbs, upsets. This girl who goes against the grain acts in ways that reveal our own failures. You feel personally humiliated, violated by her success. Is there a worse insult imaginable? Vanessa Paradis is, incarnate, youth lost, betrayed ideals, banished hope... Damn, that kind of girl hasn't come around since Brigitte Bardot and God Created Woman! Even though it's been three years since "Joe le Taxi," to say the name "Vanessa Paradis" among company, many or few, is to spark at once sarcastic remarks, gibes, invective, or at least, condescending shrugs. "She has that in common with Brigitte," explains Serge Gainsbourg, who wrote all the original lyrics of Vanessa's second album, released in mid-May. "With such a seductive aura to her, she has females hating her. They are petrified with fear that she'll steal their guy!"

It's more complicated than that. Above all, one has the impression that Vanessa is unanimously hated (seemingly so, for her success contradicts the enormity of that kind of rejection), but not Elsa (to evoke an inevitable comparison), it's because her sensuality is the "Lolita schoolgirl" type. But the pedophilia taboo, null and void (she's 17 years old, ok?), is not the sole cause of the misunderstanding. That Madonna (with whom she has more than one thing in common), or Catherine Ringer fascinates us, it's normal: they are women, made famous to us at an age where we knew they had to work to get there. Not Vanessa, who breaks all the rules of showbiz and the system of things. Without having to claw or beg her way up, she was number 1 on the charts at the age of 14, and at 17, the winner of a Cesar for Best New Female, the Romy Schneider prize, and the Victoire de la Musique award for Singer of the Year. Too beautiful, too easy, too much, to be honest.

Among her peers, the explanation, just as delicate, is less peverse. "Those who insult me, in the TV audience or on the streets, generally do it so I notice them, so I speak to them," she explains with, already, an air of resignation. "If I speak to them nicely, they become all adoring. But I understand those who don't like me. I have an impressive life, exciting, all these clothes and trips, and they fart around at school. If I were 25, this backlash wouldn't be happening. You don't have a private life anymore, when you decide to be well-known. You belong to the public and you don't have the right to feel sorry. You have to shut your trap."

BABY SINGER

Vanessa Paradis' first public appearance was in May 1981. At the time, she did not upset the crowd. L'Ecole des Fans, on Channel 2, she sang "Emilie Jolie." In hindsight, we can see she already possessed those circles under her eyes, which like her bad teeth and offset eyebrows, add to her unclassical beauty; a timbre to her voice worthy of interest; a strong character. "It wasn't just yesterday that she convinced us of her future career," laughs uncle Didier Pain, an actor (Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources), who manages her today. Yet, Vanessa's environment was favorable back then. At four years old, she began to dance "with a small company. We had shows in front of a hundred people and sometimes more. It was really scary." Flexible, muscular (the legs and belly of an American sprinter during the Olympics!), and quick to memorize routines, she dances today whenever she has the time. "What's brilliant with Rheda [the choreographer of her boyfriend at the time] is that you dance quicker than the beat, which makes you feel charged with electricity." She hasn't had the occasion to exploit her talents in a music video, contrary to the likes of Paula Abdul or Janet Jackson, but she undoubtedly has the potential.

It's just ten [there's an error in the magazine, it was actually four] more years until the song grabs hold of her again. "These guys were looking for a kid to sing one of their songs," recounts Pain. "They were taken with Vanessa, and she recorded with them." However, the record companies aren't so taken with "The Magic of Surprise Parties." At the height of "Joe le Taxi"'s success, it was briefly re-released to Fnac stores, but Didier Pain will warn and then threaten them with administrative papers (a minor, Vanessa falls under the law of child labor). It's thanks to this song, though, that Vanessa meets her future songwriter, Frank Langolff (S.O.S. Ethiopia, the album Your Morgane with Renaud), during a visit to EMI studios, where he recorded the beginnings of an album for Sophie Marceau. Vanessa, a fan, goes to see her, and on this occasion, convinces Langolff to produce her, too. "I liked him, he didn't treat me like a weak little girl. 'Joe le Taxi,' it was a good song. Something different from 'First Kiss.'"

Also present at the studio was Etienne Roda-Gil, Catalan poet and intellectual, Julien Clerc's lyricist for many years, the producer of Johnny Halliday's last album Cadillac (which includes "If I Were Myself," a duet with Vanessa), and close personal friend of Pink Floyd. He remembers: "She impressed me at once. The song wasn't ready for her to sing, but after some necessary adjustments, she took it upon herself, like she's done on each occasion since." The result would be explosive. Released on April 27, 1987, "Joe" climbs the charts for eleven consecutive weeks, going from the 21st position in the beginning of July to no. 1 at the beginning of August, even selling 629,324 copies abroad (no. 1 in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and Israel, no. 4 in Norway, no. 5 in Italy, no. 7 in Sweden, no. 8 in Germany...).

For Vanessa, the life she always dreamed of became a reality both magical and cruel. "During my first TV performance, I was completely frozen. I looked at my feet the whole time. Since then, I've learned that it doesn't work to freak out like that. It's sure to make everyone else uncomfortable and unmoved. But on the other hand, that sort of reaction is expected: you're so exposed. But that fright mixes with pleasure and it becomes so thick with good and evil, fear and desire, that it's terribly exciting. I understand perfectly how people can live for that and nothing more: it's hard to beat."

But already the fairy tale begins to sour. When Madonna visits France, she is No. 1 in all the world, save for France, where Vanessa's in her place. Seymour Stein, the president of Sire Records, proposes an international record contract via Roda-Gil. At the same time, Pain signs the international rights over to Polydor. The discomfort born of this misunderstanding will be a point of tension between manager and lyricist. There's more. "Manolo, Manolete," in spite of being a follow-up success (No. 5 on the charts), is a disappointment, which stings a little. Vanessa Paradis, she was just "Joe le Taxi." Next, please.

In the meantime, on January 26, 1988, there's the affront of Midem. Awards night. As soon as Vanessa appears, the room starts to jeer. "I had to tap my foot to try and keep the beat of my playback, which I couldn't hear anymore. Only the hubbub and the paper-balls that rained on me. I was sweating, I didn't know where I was anymore. But I made it through, I didn't cry, I didn't give them that pleasure." Backstage, comforted in the arms of Didier Pain, she will think of giving it all up. But even though her world has just collapsed, it's necessary for her to go back out on stage, for the handing out of Song of the Year, voted for by the artists themselves. And to realize, shocked and amazed, that not only was she the winner, but moreover, the same public that had decried her, now applauded her. "But that had no affect on me. I was too hurt." "I explained to her that there was still time to stop, to go back to a normal life," says Pain, sweet uncle. "That's what I promised her from the beginning. If you suffer, stop." The antidote will come from England, where "Joe le Taxi" is becoming the winter's hit song, the first French hit since "I love you... me neither" of Jane Birkin and... Serge Gainsbourg, No. 1 in 1969.

Voila: Vanessa in London, giving interviews, recognized and mobbed on the street, on the stage of the mythical Top of the Pops. She'll perform there twice. "That returned my moral. The public danced and clapped hands and released an energy and a heat that enabled me to recover from my vexations." She will be No. 3 during all of February, and she will sell 219,212 copies of the most played song on the BBC radio that year, in spite of a certain unwillingness on the part of Polydor London to exploit her success. "At that moment, I'd really had enough, I was disgusted, but I said to myself: I'll make the album, as soon as the songs are ready, and if there are still people who like me, it's for them." Frank Langolff collected all the songs he'd composed over the years, and Roda-Gil polished tales which tried to express the reality of romantic "délurée" of Paris at the end of 80's, while putting much of himself into it, as "The Good God is a Sailor" and "Soldier" attest.

Two years later, "Marilyn and John" (a hit in Brazil for Angelica, who'd already covered "Joe le Taxi"), "Maxou," "Cut Cut," "Mosquito," are still in rotation on the majority of radio playlists. And M & J, a true pop masterpiece like France had not seen in a while, revealed a singer with an unheard of natural phrasing, and with a timbre to her voice that was unique, guttural, nasal, and whistling all at once, an irritating mix worthy of Debbie Harry or Chrissie Hynde. "It takes less than five seconds to identify her," says Gainsbourg enthusiastically, who adds: "That guarantees that she will last." "For a wisp of a voice like mine, it's necessary to work at it," says Vanessa. "This first album, I adore it and I will always lay claim to it. But already, I wanted to say harder and rawer things. At 15, you don't have the right. There were tons of people around you, the record company, etc., to dissuade you." For Frank Langolff, it was also a problem of texture: "With that voice, the idea of rock'n'roll music couldn't have been brought up, even if she'd wanted it."

Despite success (285,284 copies sold, a very beautiful number, but much lower than that of Elsa for example, 560,000, or that of Patricia Kaas, 1.3 million), Vanessa will be mostly forgotten at the 1988 Music Victory awards, defeated by Kaas in the Best New Female category. She'll be a little bitter. The following year, with M & J appearing in the hallowed Albums of the Year list in the Liberation newspaper, she will be crowned in the 1989 ceremony, in the grand Album of the Year category, winning over the same rival. "Of my three awards, that's the one that gives me the greatest pleasure," she acknowledges today. "The Cesar, it's important. But the Victoire, it was revenge. It's the world that had rejected me, which told me I was a piece of shit, that I had nothing to do with them. I was really expecting to be applauding someone else." She doesn't keep this heavy in her heart. "You easily become a monster in this trade. I've met tons of people whom I admired before and who proved to be just robots. Me, I don't want to become inhuman. I want to keep a natural existence, to have children, a husband..."

BLACK WEDDING

"That film, I did it for all those people. Those that hated me. To prove to them that I wasn't who they thought I was. So I could be redeemed. I'd already received a great many scripts, but the roles were never interesting. As soon I read Noce Blanche I said yes. I thought: Mathilde is very good for me. She's really sincere. She's not just a Lolita that excites old men. She falls in love with this man. Her emotions, her problems, I could easily understand them. In the morning, I woke up inside Mathilde's skin, and then, it was pretty easy. I have fond memories. I read my dialogue the evening before, and that was all."

Yes, but... Noce Blanche, at the beginning -- rather incredibly -- was to be called Paradis, long before Jean-Claude Brisseau was not exactly taken with Vanessa. Brisseau did not believe in her, and it's known that the filming didn't occur in an environment of honest fun. Nor of friendship. And her hazing and no more convivial. She returned from a ten-day spring vacation to the find the crew in league against her. "This film with VP is a piece of shit," she read one morning on a polyester intended to absorb light. A trooper, she clenched her teeth, and continued. "When the camera's on, it's you, and only you who decides what you'll do in front of it. That I learned very quickly. Fortunately for me." And for Brisseau, finally. People went to his film particularly to see her. Naked. Her breasts with seashell nipples pointing proudly to the sky, and her derriere, with those already legendary dizzying curves (look at the cover of M& J). "Of course, that wasn't very easy. But that's the movies: pretend as though you're alone in the world while there are forty restless people around you. I didn't hesitate, because for Mathilde, to walk so naked in front of people was not a problem. When it was time to film, when I was naked, it wasn't me. Now, I've showed it once, my li'l ass. Get a good look, because from now on, it's more than likely that you'll never see it again."

White Wedding has amazed everyone and seduced the critics. In the film, Etienne Roda-Gil sees before him all the triumph of his singer. "She completely steals the film. There's nothing left around her, neither the script nor Bruno Kremer." The sign of a star. You start to think of Garbo, Ava Gardner, of Marilyn, not their characters. For Vanessa, despite this new traumatism, the game is won. You know the rest. Covered with laurels at the beginning of the year, photographed by Bettina Rheims for the cover of Paris Match, she becomes the new Bardot. "Already, at school, people called me Brigitte and I didn't understand why. But I'm not a star. I don't wake up in the morning and tell myself I'm beautiful. As Vanessa Paradis, I don't like myself. I know myself too well. In the film, I'm odd. And in any event, the most difficult is yet to come. I especially will try not to disappoint people. A career, it's not a smooth road, it's a bumpy road."

INITIALS VP

"Paradise, it's hell." You can count on Gainsbourg. "Privately, she has no need for me in the studio. She manages remarkably all alone." Here's what's new for this inveterate Pygmalion. Not counting that it's her who chose him. "I was listening to the radio one evening, and a journalist asked Serge whom he'd like to work with. He said my name. I talked to Didier about it and with Frank and we went to see him in hopes that he could maybe write one song. We arrived on Verneuil street, at his museum: I was very intimidated. Frank had him listen to all his music, and in the end, Serge decided to help with the whole album." Demanded to, as rumor goes. "Serge was very professional," says Frank. "He had a certain amount of time to write the lyrics, and he worked like hell." "I spit them out in eight days and nights full of nightmares," Serge confirms. "I sweated blood and tears, to analyze her soul beyond poetry, to give her more than lyrics with rare rhymes. To the point of almost having a heart attack. I nearly burst."

For Serge, this job was a bit peculiar because he had to work on top of music already recorded by Langolff. As was expected, the first batch of lyrics were comprised of "Lollipops" and "Open Your Mouth, Shut Your Eyes." Vanessa always refused them. "Each time there was a word or an expression a little awkward, I just innocently asked him what he wanted to say, and at once, he modified them. "It was an equilateral triangle," agrees Gainsbourg, who has endless praises for his new partners. "The music was so concrete. That's why I had so much trouble working on top of them. If they hadn't been so high-quality, I wouldn't have done it. But we're all in the same place and we're all professionals. There isn't one weak song on this album. It says 'PLATINUM'..."

Roda-Gil, he kept quiet. He had just lost his significant other, Nadine, and acknowledged "not to have the kind of energy I'd need to take on the titanic task of another M & J." In any event, Variations on the Same Love Themes, originally intended for an April 17 release in sync with the Champs-Elysees special, was pushed back one more month to make fans more familiar with a material that was sure to surprise them. "Zulu," "No Way," "Charms No More," "The Love With Two," "Tell Him That I Love You" ("with a cynicism equal to "I like you, me neither," Gainsbourg says), don't resemble what Vanessa had sung before: blues, rock 'n' roll, electric guitars, drums that bang... "This CD is more mature than the first. At 15, you can't sing words too harsh, to bitter. Two years later, everything's different. They're pretty, the sad songs. Now that Frank and Serge have given me this opportunity, I'm the happiest girl in the world." A girl who's even allowed, after a stunning cover of "True Colors" (Cyndi Lauper) on a television special with Depardieu, to cover "Walk on the Wild Side." "I heard it for the first time in an ad on TV, and I immediately adored it. It's a song of tolerance, of freedom." It's unknown what the English-speakers will think about it, who are likely to chuckle a bit when they hear that she intends to sing, less severely than Lou Reed, but with as much authority, these stories of transvestite prostitutes who haunt Andy Warhol's Factory in NYC. But filmed in Paris and the warehouses of Bercy, in front of the camera directed by Barnard Faroux, for a 26-minute show produced by her record company, no one will question her.

Vanessa Paradis is not just "the Best French Singer of 1989, with people of all ages confused." She's the international superstar of the Nineties of which France had, up to that point, only been able to dream of: Bardot barely sang and danced badly; Francoise Hardy was a tight-ass; Veronique Sanson was not believable; France Gall matured too late; Jeanne Mas does not exist. Vanessa, she's a "monster," to paraphrase Roda-Gil. She sings like nobody; acts just fine; dances remarkably; has played the piano for four years; and... starts to compose. "If words come to me, of course the songs will come to me too. The most admirable artists are those who are able to draw their expression totally from themselves. I've already done some things, but it's still too early to share them."