Liliane Rovère

Liliane Rovère (née Liliane Cyprienne Cukier, born 1933-01-30 in Paris, France) is a celebrated French actress whose life reads like a cinematic narrative. Born to a Jewish family during a tumultuous era, she survived the German occupation by hiding in Catholic institutions under a false name, while many of her relatives perished in the Holocaust. Her early love for jazz ignited at age twelve, leading her to frequent Parisian clubs and later, at eighteen, to a traumatic assault that she later recounted with unflinching honesty. In 1954, her parents sent her to the United States to live with an uncle, where she discovered New York's legendary Birdland and entered a whirlwind romance with cool‑jazz trumpeter Chet Baker. She accompanied Baker on tour for two years, was presented as his wife in press photographs, and even appeared on the iconic collage for Chet Baker Sings and Plays. Their liaison ended in 1956 when Baker, already married, notified her by letter of his new marriage. Returning to France, Liliane married jazz bassist Gilbert "Bibi" Rovère, with whom she adopted a daughter named Tina in 1971. After studying acting and working as a make‑up artist, she broke into screen work in the mid‑1960s, eventually gaining recognition for roles such as Madame Queen in Round Midnight (1986) and Arlette Azémar in the hit series Call My Agent! (2015‑2020), a character loosely based on her own experiences. In 1998 she earned a Lutin award for best actress in Le Sujet, and in 2019 she published her memoir La folle vie de Lili, detailing a life interwoven with music, love, and resilience. An outspoken supporter of left‑wing politics, she endorsed Jean‑Luc Mélenchon in the 2022 French presidential election, continuing to engage with cultural and social issues well into her ninth decade.