Margo Lion (cabaret singer)

Margo Lion
Born
Marguerite Hélène Barbe Elisabeth Constantine Lion

(1899-02-28)28 February 1899
Constantinople
Died24 February 1989(1989-02-24) (aged 89)
Paris
Occupation(s)Chanteuse, actress
Years active1921–1977
SpouseMarcellus Schiffer

Marguerite Hélène Barbe Elisabeth Constantine Lion (28 February 1899 – 24 February 1989), known as Margo Lion, was a European singer and actress.

Lion was born in Constantinople to a Jewish family during Ottoman rule. She moved to Berlin after World War I with her father to join the school of Russian ballet. She was a successful chanteuse, parodist, cabaret singer, and actress, best known for her role as Pirate Jenny in director G. W. Pabst's 1931 French-language adaptation of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper). In 1928, Lion and Dietrich sang a famous duet, "Wenn die beste Freundin mit der besten Freundin", a song which allegedly had lesbian overtones and which became a hit in Weimar Berlin prior to Dietrich's departure for Hollywood.

When the Nazi Party rose to power in 1933, she moved to France to avoid antisemitic persecution. Lion appeared in several French films until the early 1970s, including Docteur Françoise Gailland, L'Humeur Vagabonde, La Faute De L'Abbe Mouret, Le Petit Matin, Le Fou Du Labo, Julie La Rousse, and the 1946 French romantic melodrama Martin Roumagnac, which starred Marlene Dietrich.

Death

Lion died in Paris in 1989,[1] four days before her 90th birthday.

Selected filmography

References

  1. ^ Farina, William (28 January 2013). The German Cabaret Legacy in American Popular Music. McFarland. p. 209. ISBN 978-0-7864-6863-8. Retrieved 1 November 2024.
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