Dorothée French Singer Known for Love on the Run

Early life

Dorothée, whose birth name is Frédérique Hoschedé, was born on 14 July 1953 in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. She took the single name Dorothée for her work in television and music, and it is the name under which her records and appearances are credited.

Career

Dorothée began on French television in the 1970s. She presented a children's programme called Les mercredis de la jeunesse in 1973 and then Dorothée et ses amis in 1977 and 1978. From 1977 to 1983 she also worked as a continuity announcer on the public channel Antenne 2. Her best-known television work was the children's strand Récré A2, which ran from 1978 to 1987, and its successor Club Dorothée, which was on air from 1987 to 1997. At its height Club Dorothée filled around thirty hours of broadcasting per week, and it is credited with bringing Japanese animated series such as Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya and City Hunter to French audiences. Some of these series drew complaints over violent content, including from the broadcasting regulator.

Alongside presenting, she built a large career as a singer. The records used for this profile list nineteen albums released between 1980 and 2010, beginning with Dorothée au pays des chansons in 1980 and ending with Dorothée 2010. Through the 1980s and into the mid-1990s she released roughly one album per year, mostly pop aimed at children, on the AB Disques label. Titles from that run include Hou ! La menteuse (1982), Maman (1986), Docteur (1987), Attention danger (1988), Tremblement de terre (1989), Les Neiges de l'Himalaya (1991), Une histoire d'amour (1992), Bonheur City (1995) and La Honte de la famille (1996). She also recorded traditional French nursery rhymes in a series of collections called Le jardin des chansons, and several of her songs, among them Candy and Sophie et Virginie, served as opening themes for cartoons shown in Club Dorothée.

A recurring feature of her records was a song with the word valise in the title. From Hou ! La menteuse in 1982 through Dorothée 2010, each album included one such track, with a similar tune but a new arrangement and partly rewritten lyrics, sixteen in all.

Her live shows were very large. Between 1990 and 1996 she gave 56 concerts at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, a figure that remains the record for a female performer at that venue and is third overall behind Michel Sardou and Johnny Hallyday. Live recordings include Live à Bercy (1990) and Bercy 93 (1993). Her 1992 tour sold more than 500,000 tickets and earned her a Fauteuil d'Or.

In the 1990s she turned toward early rock and roll. In 1993 and 1994 she hosted three prime-time television specials, the Dorothée Rock'n'roll Show, where she sang duets with artists such as Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Cliff Richard, Henri Salvador, Percy Sledge, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. With Lewis she performed Great Balls of Fire, which also appears on Une histoire d'amour. Her 1994 album Nashville was recorded in the American city of the same name, in a studio associated with Elvis Presley and Bill Haley.

Dorothée also had a short spell in cinema. Her screen credits include Love on the Run (1979), directed by François Truffaut, in which she played Sabine Barnerias, and The Other One's Mug (1979). In 1980 she appeared in Pile ou Face, directed by Robert Enrico, as Laurence Bertil. She is also listed in connection with My American Uncle (1980). Decades later she made a cameo appearance in the 2019 film Nicky Larson et le Parfum de Cupidon and voiced the character Airazor in the French dub of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023).

Recognition

In 2010 Dorothée was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, a French state distinction for contributions to the arts. Her 1992 tour also brought her a Fauteuil d'Or for ticket sales.