Biography

Edmonde Charles-Roux was born on April 17, 1920 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. She was a writer, known for Coco Before Chanel (2009), The Palermo Connection (1990) and L'invité du dimanche (1968). She was married to Gaston Defferre. She died on January 20, 2016 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France.

Her husband Gaston Defferre was mayor of Marseille from 1944-1945 and 1953-1986.

Former editor-in-chief of French Vogue. President of the literary circle the Académie Goncourt.

Her father was a diplomat whose postings took the family from one international capital to another. She spent much of her childhood in Prague and Rome.

Soon after the fall of France in WWII, her parents returned to their hometown, Marseille. She earned a nursing degree and volunteered to serve in an ambulance corps in the French Foreign Legion. At Verdun, she was wounded during an aerial bombardment of the field hospital where she was working. She was wounded again when the First French Army, to which she was attached, advanced into Austria. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor.

In 1946, she was hired as a writer for a new women's magazine, Elle. Two years later, she began writing for the French edition of Vogue, which named her editor-in-chief in 1954, replacing Michel de Brunhoff (brother of Jean de Brunhoff, the author of the Babar children's books). She promoted the careers of up-and-coming designers, notably Emanuel Ungaro and Yves Saint-Laurent.