Jean-Paul Vignon dead at 89: The actor and singer who starred in Shrek and the Gilmore Girls, has passed away

French actor and singer Jean-Paul Vignon, who starred in Shrek and the Gilmore Girls, has died at the age of 89. His family revealed that Jean-Paul Vignon, who had an eight-decade career passed away in Beverly Hills, California on March 22 of liver cancer. 

Jean-Paul Vignon was born on January 30, 1934 in Dire-Daou, part of the colonial territory of French Somaliland which was later known as Djibouti. Jean-Paul went to school in Avignon in France and for a short time, studied law at the Sorbonne in Paris and medicine in Marseille before deciding to start a full-time career in music. 

It was in 1963 that Jean-Paul Vignon made his debut when he opened for Woody Allen at the celebrated The Blue Angel, which was a supper club in New York. He then appeared eight times in the CBS variety show and during one of these times, he sang a duet with Liza Minnelli.

The following year, Jean-Paul Vignon released his first U.S. album entitled ‘Because I Love You,’ and was signed to Columbia Records. He later starred in the World War 11 movie The Devil’s Brigade and in 1974, recorded a single ‘You’ with the then relatively unknown actress and model Farrah Fawcett.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Changing audience tastes stalled his career, but he did host a Canadian TV show produced by Dick Clark called The Sensuous Man, which ended each week with him reclining in a bathtub. And for a Playgirl centrefold in 1973, he sported a sweater once worn in a famous photo shoot by Marilyn Monroe and little else.”

Jean-Paul Vignon also appeared as Monsieur Lazare in the soap Days of Our Lives, two episodes of Columbo and also the Gilmore Girls. As well as narrating the film 500 Days Of Summer which starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, Jean-Paul Vignon also voiced one of the Merry Men in Shrek. 

Jean-Paul Vignon also had a production company called Côte d’Azur Productions where French audiences were given translations and overdubs of American films. In 2018, he released his memoir entitled ‘From Ethiopia To Utopia’ The synopsis for his book on Amazon reads: “If you wonder what it was like to be born in the land of Sheba, to live as a child in Beirut during WWII, or as a young actor in Paris during the French New Wave, or as a singer in New York City’s Mad Men era, Jean-Paul Vignon transports you there in his unforgettable memoir, FROM ETHIOPIA TO UTOPIA.”

The actor and singer Jean-Paul Vignon is survived by his long-time partner Suzie Summers, daughters and granddaughters. He performed until he was in his 80s and made appearances at Catalina Jazz Club and Feinstein’s at Vitello’s.