Ray Ventura

Production Apr 16, 1908 Mar 29, 1979 (aged 71) Paris, France

Raymond Ventura (16 April 1908, Paris, France – 29 March 1979, Palma de Mallorca, Spain) was a French jazz pianist and bandleader. He helped popularize jazz in France in the 1930s. His nephew was singer Sacha Distel.

Ventura was born to a Jewish family. In 1925 he was the pianist for the Collegiate Five, which recorded as the Collegians for Columbia beginning in 1928 and for Decca in the 1930s. A year later he led the band, and it became a dance orchestra resembling a big band. His sidemen included Alix Combelle, Philippe Brun, and Guy Paquinet. In the early 1940s he led a big band in South America and in France during the rest of the decade.

One of his band's popular songs from 1936 was "Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise" in which the Marquise is told by her servants that everything is fine at home except for a series of escalating calamities. It was seen as a metaphor for France's obliviousness to the approaching war.

Source: Article "Ray Ventura" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

16 Acting Credits

21 Crew Credits

Ray Ventura

Acting

Quadrille

Monte Carlo Baby

We Will All Go to Paris

One Hundred Francs Per Second

L'assassin connaît la musique

Adventure in Paris

Femmes de Paris

Mademoiselle Has Fun

Feux de joie

Cinépanorama

Everything is Going Very Well Madame la Marquise

Whirlwind of Paris

Numéro un

La Chance aux chansons

Le Billet de mille

Samedi soir

Crew

Love Is My Profession

We Will Go to Deauville

Night Fun

Plucking the Daisy

Quadrille

Without Leaving an Address

Monte Carlo Baby

Lovers' Net

And Satan Calls the Turns

French Touch

Companions of the Night

Desperate Decision