2009,
French,
Jean Guilda,
Original title: "Il était une fois ... Guilda" (Once upon a time... Guilda). This is the second biography of Jean Guilda, following her 1979 book "Guilda: elle et moi" (Guilda: her and me).
There are artists who change costumes, and then there are those who change culture. Jean Guida de Mortellaro, forever etched into public memory as Guilda, did both with jaw-dropping flair. In Il était une fois... Guilda ("Once Upon a Time... Guilda"), published in 2009, the legendary drag artist unveils a life that reads less like a memoir and more like a myth. But myth, in Guilda’s hands, becomes a deeply human story of survival, glamour, defiance, and creative reinvention.
This book, Guilda’s second autobiography following Guilda: elle et moi (1979), is not merely an update or a sequel. It’s an unflinching, unapologetic reflection on an extraordinary life lived between the footlights and the shadows, the fabulous and the terrifying, the mascara wand and the memories of war. Written with the confessional elegance of someone who knew performance could be armor and mirror both, Il était une fois... Guilda offers readers something rare: a behind-the-scenes invitation to meet the man behind the illusion, and the illusion that shaped the man.
Born in Paris on June 21, 1924, Guilda grew up surrounded by whispers of nobility, his mother, he claimed, was a Sicilian countess. Whether true or not, that royal lineage served as a backdrop to a childhood ravaged by the 1929 financial crash. The young Jean would soon find solace in performance, touring in revues and perfecting his skills in dance and makeup before adolescence was even over. His talents led him to the Ballets de Monte Carlo, but it was the brutal lessons of World War II that etched themselves most deeply into his early adult years. In a chilling episode recounted in his book, Guilda was arrested by the Gestapo in Nice alongside two Jewish friends. Deported toward the Buchenwald concentration camp, he managed to escape through a train’s waste reservoir. His friends did not survive. The trauma of that near-death experience haunts the pages of his memoir, exposing the fragility beneath the fierce beauty of his later persona.
Il était une fois... Guilda doesn’t sidestep this darkness, it weaves it into the foundation of the brilliance that followed. Emerging from the ashes of war, Guilda dove into the world of Parisian cabaret. At Le Carrousel de Paris, he transformed into Guilda, a name inspired by the sultry power of Rita Hayworth’s femme fatale in Gilda. More than a name, Guilda became an act of resistance and revelation: a glorious inversion of gender expectations, shimmering with elegance and satire. Audiences were mesmerized. In time, he was even recruited to be the stage double for Mistinguett, one of France’s greatest icons of chanson and revue. Guilda first visited North America in 1951, and it was love at first light. Montreal, with its vibrant arts scene and bilingual culture, seduced him. When his U.S. visa expired, he settled in the city permanently in 1955, quickly taking the cabaret world by storm. He performed at the legendary Chez Paree and later founded his own venue, Chez Guilda, which became a safe haven for self-expression and gender play in a society still steeped in conservatism.
Il était une fois... Guilda captures this golden age of Montreal nightlife with reverent detail. From his legendary impersonations of Marlene Dietrich and Édith Piaf to his dazzling Marilyn Monroe routines, Guilda didn’t simply parody femininity, he exalted it, reinvented it, and turned it into poetry on stage. He was not mocking women. He was paying tribute to their complexity, their seduction, and their strength, often exposing the absurd rigidity of gender roles through sheer elegance and wit. But this is no sanitized rags-to-rhinestones narrative. The book brims with contradictions and reveals a man who was both provocateur and parent, seducer and survivor. Guilda speaks candidly about his bisexuality, his multiple marriages, and his deep love for his children. He describes navigating fatherhood while performing in high heels, often straddling two worlds that, at the time, seemed mutually exclusive. And yet, Guilda’s life was always about coexistence, about making the impossible not only possible, but beautiful.
He also recounts his ventures into acting, appearing in films such as Virgin Lovers and Pousse mais pousse égal, and even portraying the Chevalier d'Éon, a real-life 18th-century gender-nonconforming spy, in a 1984 television series. These roles weren’t just work; they were extensions of his lifelong fascination with the ambiguity and artistry of identity. As the pages unfold, readers witness the artist’s later years, during which he turned increasingly to painting. One of the most touching and unexpected episodes in Il était une fois... Guilda is the commission he received from the Archdiocese of Montreal: to paint a portrait of Pope John Paul II. It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic juxtaposition, a former drag cabaret star quietly working on a holy image of the pontiff. And yet, it is entirely fitting. Guilda’s life was defined by such paradoxes. Even in his eighties, Guilda never stopped performing. His triumphant 80th birthday show in 2004 was a testament not only to his enduring charisma, but to a lifetime of defying expectations. The memoir ends not with a swan song, but with a call to resilience.
In Guilda’s universe, aging does not dim the spotlight, it sharpens its focus. Il était une fois... Guilda is a rare autobiography that succeeds on many levels: as a document of LGBTQ+ history, as a tribute to the cabaret tradition, and as an introspective portrait of a performer who lived multiple truths at once. The voice on the page is unmistakably Guilda’s, wry, romantic, a little self-mythologizing, and always full of heart. It’s the voice of someone who knew that performance was never a mask, but a mirror held up to society, daring it to see more clearly. Jean Guilda passed away in 2012, but his legacy continues to resonate. In an age when drag has gone mainstream, his story reminds us that the pioneers were not only entertainers, they were visionaries, rebels, and often, survivors of unspeakable horrors. Il était une fois... Guilda doesn’t just chronicle the life of a drag queen. It tells the story of a man who used illusion to reveal truth, who turned trauma into art, and who never stopped dazzling, on or off stage. Above all, Guilda’s memoir invites us to dream bolder, love wider, and walk more defiantly in our own chosen shoes, be they stiletto, slipper, or something entirely new.
Other publications about Jean Guilda:
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