Elsa Lunghini

Biography

Elsa Lunghini is the daughter of Georges Lunghini, an actor, photographer and songwriter, and Christiane Jobert, a painter who is also the sister of actress Marlène Jobert and Charles Jobert, a camera operator and director of photography. She is of Italian origin on her father's side and of Sephardic Jewish origin on her mother's side, and is a cousin of actresses Eva Green and Josephine Jobert. At age seven, in 1981, she made her first film appearance in Claude Miller's Garde à vue, which also starred Romy Schneider.

In October 1990, at 17, she became the youngest artist to perform in the main program at the Olympia, and she was also the youngest to have a number one hit in the Top 50 in France. At 13, in 1986, her single "T'en va pas" remained number one for eight weeks; it was the soundtrack of the movie La Femme de ma vie and was composed by Italian Romano Musumarra, who had worked with 1980s singer Jeanne Mas. The song was a hit in France and sold elsewhere in Europe with an English recording.

With help from her musician father, she recorded her LP Elsa, which sold more than 600,000 copies and produced hit singles including "Quelque chose dans mon cœur", "Jour de neige", "Jamais nous" (with backing vocals by Laurent Voulzy), "Un Roman d'amitié" (a duet with Glenn Medeiros), and "À la même heure dans deux ans"; all were top 10 hits. At that time, she was the only artist to have her first four singles at number one or two, and she became popular in the teen press, often compared with Vanessa Paradis.

In 1990, she released her second album, Rien que pour ça, produced by her father; she wrote the music for the single of the same name, which became a top 20 hit. Two other excerpts were released: "Pleure doucement" and "Qu'est-ce que ça peut lui faire". In 1992, she recorded "Bouscule-moi", a mid-rock single with more adult lyrics that was a hit, and her third album was Douce violence. In 1996, at age 23, she wrote and composed her fourth album, Chaque jour est un long chemin, which sold 20,000 copies.

From 20 to 24 September 2004, she gave shows in Paris at the Européen, and a live DVD and live CD went on sale in 2006. She has starred in two TV movies: 2002's La mort est rousse and 2004's Trois jours en juin, and has been involved in a television advertising campaign for Danone yoghurt.