Galia Salimo - Quelque chose en moins... ou en plus

2022, French, Galia Salimo,

Original title: "Quelque chose en moins... ou en plus" (Something less... or more) by Galia Salimo.

Ten days already. Ten days without sunshine, but without a shadow of regret. Ten days since I left Marseilles for Paris where I knew I had an appointment with my destiny. Ten days that I said goodbye to my childhood, and that I definitively left this disguise of a boy, with which I had been decked out. Ten days since I gave up the idea of walking in someone else's shoes.

Born a boy in Marseille, Galia Salimo recounts the exhilarating and earthy beginnings of her life as queen of Parisian nights. From the festive capital of the 1970s to stages around the world – Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Hiroshima... – she tells it all: the red-light districts of Antwerp, the palaces of Jakarta, the competition between transformist artists, her friendships and her loves, the shows and their backstage at Madame Arthur, at the Carrousel and at the Alcazar... We have fun, we smile, we are also moved when she talks about the difficult search for her true identity. Laughing on the verge of tears, humor slung across the shoulder, defying the taboos and diktats of post-68 society, in ten years, the caterpillar has transformed into a butterfly convinced... that nothing is impossible.

Galia was born into a big family and was the eldest of sixteen children. Assigned a boy at birth, she would play with girls and didn't feel like a boy at all. She realized who she was when at the age of 5 or 6, she heard about the transition of Cocinelle, a transgender artist.

At the age of 17, Galia Salimo moved to Paris in 1966 to escape an environment where homosexuality was not accepted and where becoming transgender was impossible. She became a revue dancer at the Alcazar, where she gained fame. She then worked for many Parisian nightlife establishments as a nude dancer: the Carrousel, the Palace, Madame Arthur, and the Queen, then became an opener at Mathi's.

She is often described by the press as the "queen of Parisian nights". Upon her arrival in Paris, she modeled for the first French agency dedicated to African models, Golden Beauty, before being noticed by Jean-Marie Rivière, who hired her to play Joséphine Baker at the Alcazar. Hired by the Carrousel, she began international tours, the first of them in 1977 in Iran and then in Australia and Japan.

In 1980, she underwent a gender reassignment surgery. In 1982, she tried her hand at comedy by playing in the film La Balance with Nathalie Baye. After the closure of the Carrousel in 1985, a darker period began, including the appearance of AIDS. At that time, she decided to change the path of her career and was hired at the Aldo, a bar for transvestites. She then discovered this environment that she did not really know and which seemed harsh and excessive to her. She then worked for the Morroco bar and, in 1986, was recruited to run the smoking room of the famous Palace club.

In 2000, she released a record Welcome. In 2001, she hosted the television show Good as you on Canal Jimmy. In 2008, Galia made an appearance in the series Sous le soleil on TF1. In 2015, she returned to animation, this time on the radio, joining the show Les Grosses Têtes on RTL7. Her story inspired the play "Dans les chaussures d'un autre" by Fabio Marra.

Available via Amazon

Photos via Instagram