Vanessa Paradis

Vanessa Paradis was only eight years old when she started competing on TV talent shows, her first steps on the road to becoming an iconic triple threat of French pop, fashion, and cinema. Born in a town near Paris in 1972, the aspiring singer and actress graduated from her early forays into entertainment when her irresistibly jazzy 1987 single, “Joe Le Taxi,” became a smash not only at home but in the UK and Ireland, too. As young as she was, Paradis was already too artistically adventurous to fit into any conventional teen-pop mold and instead sought out collaborations with Serge Gainsbourg and Lenny Kravitz. Even after she became one of Europe’s most recognizable women on magazine pages and movie screens, Paradis continued to subvert expectations with the mix of jazz, rock, and vintage Gallic pop on later albums like 2013’s Love Songs and 2018’s Les sources.