Regine, disco pioneer and nightclub queen, dies at 92
French singer and actress Regine, who laid claim to the invention of the modern discotheque and once ran a nightclub empire from Paris to Los Angeles, died on Sunday aged 92, her granddaughter said. Regine, born Regina Zylberberg in Belgium to Jewish Polish parents, opened her first club in Paris's Latin Quarter in the 1950s, replacing the juke-box, ubiquitous in dance venues at the time, with turntables and disc jockeys. The new format, she often said, justified her claim to "the invention of the discotheque". She famously said in 2015: "If you can't dance, you can't make love." The new discos caught on with the jet set and Regine, who became known as the "queen of the night", opened several more venues across the world, including "Regine's" in New York in the 1970s, and others in Miami, Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles. "Regine left us peacefully at 11am on this May 1," her granddaughter Daphne Rotcajg said. In a statement sent on behalf of Regine's family, her friend, the comic Pierre Palmade, said: "The queen of the night has left. Closing time following a long and great career." Regine "had the stars of the whole world dancing in her nightclubs", he added. At its height, Regine's disco empire comprised 22 establishments, and some 20,000 people owned an exclusive membership card in the 1980s that gave them access to all of them. Pop artist Andy Warhol, showbiz star Liza Minelli, bankers the Rothschilds, and the Kennedys were among her customers. Her name "became synonymous with the crazy nights that lasted until the small hours", Palmade said, adding that Regine herself would "hit the dance floor until closing time". Among people paying tribute to Regine was former French culture minister Jack Lang who called her a "poetic and glittering Parisian legend". (AFP)