Pierre Barouh

Pierre Barouh (19 February 1934, Paris – 28 December 2016, Paris) was a French writer-composer-singer best known for his work on Claude Lelouch's film A Man and a Woman both as actor, and as lyric writer/singer for Francis Lai's music for the film.

Élie Barouh, and his brother and sister, were raised in Levallois-Perret. Their parents were Turkish Jewish stallholders selling fabrics. During the Second World War, their parents hid them from the Nazis in Montournais in the Vendée. During these years Élie, baptised Pierre, drew the inspiration for songs like "À bicyclette", "Des ronds dans l'eau", "Les Filles du dimanche". After the war he was a sports journalist and played for the national volley-ball team. He spent some months in Portugal and discovered Brazilian song. He visited Brazil and on his return to Paris got to know the principal Brazilian writers and composers of bossa nova.

Cinema and Theatre

As an actor, he played the role of the gipsy leader in the film D'ou viens-tu Johnny? and appeared in Lelouch's Une fille et des fusils. As writer/performer he had success with La Plage – immortalised by Marie Laforêt and the guitarist Claude Ciari -, Tes dix-huit ans and Monsieur de Furstenberg. He shot a documentary on the beginnings of bossa nova with his longtime friend Baden Powell de Aquino.

In 1966 he participated in the enormous success of the film A Man and a Woman which won the Palme d'Or at the 1966 Festival de Cannes. He married the actress Anouk Aimée the same year; they divorced three years later. With his earnings he bought the mill by the river in the Vendée where he had spent part of his childhood. There he established a recording studio and welcomed other artists, using it to advance the talent of others and creating his own label Saravah. With the label he wished to mix musicians and styles, to multiply musical encounters. He worked, notably, with Pierre Akendengué, Areski Belkacem, Brigitte Fontaine, Nana Vasconcelos, Gérard Ansaloni, Jacques Higelin, Alfred Panou, Maurane, David McNeil, Elis Regina.

Barouh died in Paris from an infarction on December 28, 2016. He was aged 82.