Self-Proclaimed “Discotheque” Inventor Dies At 92

May 1, 2022 Business, Pop Culture

Deadline Hollywood reports:

Regine, who claimed to have invented the term “discotheque” as she ran a nightclub empire that stretched from Paris to Los Angeles, has died. She passed on Sunday at age 92, according to her granddaughter. At its height, her nightlife empire had 22 venues.

Born Regina Zylberberg in Belgium, Regine opened her first nightclub in Paris’s Latin Quarter in the 1950s, installing turntables and disc jockeys instead of the usual jukeboxes. Thus was born a new format, she claimed, the “discotheque.”

“If you can’t dance, you can’t make love,” she said by way of explanation. She apparently was right, as celebrities, royalty and the business elite flocked to her establishments, earning her the nicknme as the “queen of the night.”

Read the full article.

Homosexual gentlemen of a certain age may recall that Regine had a number of club hits, perhaps most notably with her French cover of “I Will Survive.”

Dig the dancers in the last clip below.



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