Legendary nightclub Le Palace, where Serge Gainsbourg and Prince also performed, to rise again
In the late 1970s, Le Palace in Paris’s busy theatre district was one of continental Europe’s most famous nightclubs.
On the opening night on 1 March 1978, Grace Jones stunned VIP guests with her rendition of Edith Piaf’s classic La Vie en Rose. Later, Serge Gainsbourg and Prince came to perform, Bob Marley was photographed there and Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol and Karl Lagerfeld were part of a glittering cast of international celebrities, politicians, designers and models who came to drink and dance.
It was, as the queen of disco Donna Summer would sing, hot stuff. But within five years of Le Palace opening, disco was on its way out. The Parisian boogie wonderland where they had strutted their stuff to Stayin’ Alive was dead and not even Gloria Gaynor’s defiant I Will Survive would save it.
The avant garde nightclub that had attracted a glitterball generation closed temporarily in 1982 when its owner, Fabrice Emaer, was ill with terminal cancer. It turned out to be the end of Le Palace as everyone knew it.
