Carla Bruni Biography
Summary
"Carla Bruni Tedeschi", known as "Carla Bruni" (born 23 December 1967) is an Italian songwriter, singer and model, and the current wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Biography
Heiress to the Italian tire manufacturing company CEAT founded in the 1920s by her grandfather Virginio Bruni Tedeschi and sold by her stepfather Alberto in the 1970s to Pirelli (the brand lives on via its Indian subsidiary, founded in 1958), she was born in Turin, Italy. The family moved to France in 1973, reportedly to escape the threat of kidnapping by the Red Brigades, a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group active in Italy in the 1970s. Carla grew up in France from the age of five and later attended boarding school in Switzerland. She eventually returned to Paris to study art and architecture, but left school at the age of 19 to become a model as a full-time career.
Family
She is the daughter of Italian concert pianist Marysa Borini and industrialist and classical composer Alberto Bruni Tedeschi. Her sister is actress and movie director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. She also had a brother named Virginio Bruni-Tedeschi (1959 - 4 July 2006). In 2007, it was claimed that her biological father is Maurizio Remmert, an Italian businessman settled in Brazil.
Career
Modeling
Bruni signed with City Models at age 19 and her career began. Paul Marciano, president and creative director of Guess? Inc., came across her picture among a stack of composite cards of aspiring models and chose her to model with Estelle Lefébure in ad campaigns for Guess? jeans. Bruni subsequently worked for a number of designers and fashion houses, such as Christian Dior, Paco Rabanne, Sonia Rykiel, Christian Lacroix, Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Yves Saint-Laurent, Chanel, Versace, and others.
By the 1990s, Bruni was among the 20 highest-paid fashion models, earning $7.5 million a year. While modeling, Bruni dated Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger and Donald Trump. On Friday, 11 April 2008, it was confirmed that a 1993 nude photograph of Carla Bruni has been auctioned for US$91,000 (£46,098) - more than 20 times the expected price.
Music
In 1997, Bruni quit the world of fashion, to devote herself to music. She sent her lyrics to Julien Clerc in 1999, based on which he composed seven tracks on his 2000 album "Si j'étais elle".
In 2002, her debut album "Quelqu'un m'a dit", produced by ex-lover Louis Bertignac, was released in Europe with major success in Francophone countries. Three songs from the album appear in Hans Canosa's 2005 American film "Conversations with Other Women". The song "Le plus beau du quartier" was used in H&M's Christmas 2006 commercial.
In 2005, she was a guest in Louis Bertignac's return album on the song "Les frôleuses" which they sang together as a duet.
In 2006, Bruni recorded "Those Little Things" an English-language translation of the Serge Gainsbourg song "Ces Petits Riens", for the tribute album "Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited". She participated in the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics, in a parade section paying tribute to the Italian flag.
Her second album, "No Promises" containing poems by Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Auden, Dorothy Parker, Walter de la Mare, and Christina Rosetti, set to music, was released in January 2007.
Her albums are released by the French quality independent record label Naïve, which also releases artists such as Vinicius Cantuaria and Aline de Lima.
Personal life
Relationships
It has been claimed that Carla Bruni was involved with Louis Bertignac, Mick Jagger (Jagger's wife acknowledged his affair with Bruni was one of the reasons for their separation), Eric Clapton, Donald Trump, Léos Carax, Charles Berling, Arno Klarsfeld, Vincent Perez and former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius.
She has said she is easily 'bored with monogamy', and 'Love lasts a long time, but burning desire - two to three weeks'.
The Enthovens
While living with Jean-Paul Enthoven, Bruni fell in love and started an affair with his son, philosophy professor Raphaël Enthoven (track 2, "Raphäel", of Carla's album Quelqu'un m'a dit is named after him), who was at the time married to novelist Justine Lévy, daughter of philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.
The affair and the subsequent ending of her marriage were the inspiration for Justine Lévy's best-selling book "Rien de grave" ("Nothing Serious"), published in 2004. In the book, Lévy paints a vitriolic portrait of 'Paula', the female who steals the protagonist's husband, as 'a praying mantis' with 'a Terminator smile'.
Bruni and Raphaël Enthoven had a son, Aurélien, born in 2001.
Nicolas Sarkozy
At the end of 2007, Bruni was reported to be in a relationship with French president Nicolas Sarkozy after photographers took pictures of them visiting Disneyland Resort Paris, as well as during a vacation in Luxor, Egypt and Petra, Jordan during the Christmas holidays. During a press conference at Elysée Palace on January 8, 2008, President Sarkozy confirmed their relationship and hinted at a possible wedding.They married on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris. The marriage is Bruni's first and Sarkozy's third.Following her marriage to French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, in February 2008, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy immediately began accompanying Sarkozy on state visits, including to the United Kingdom in March 2008, which created a sensation in the international press and the public in the UK and France.There was controversy on the eve of the state visit to the UK, with the publication by Christie's auction house of a nude photograph of Bruni taken during her career as a supermodel. This photograph sold for $91,000. There was also great interest in Bruni's wardrobe, which was Christian Dior, seen as a diplomatic choice, being a French design house designed by John Galliano, a British designer.Another controversy was the use of a popular photo of the French President and Bruni in the print advertising of Ryanair. The couple were awarded damages by a French court which they donated in full to the French charitable organisation "Les Restos du C?ur".
Discography
"Quelqu'un m'a dit"
Released: 2003
Label: Naïve
FR. sales: 1.2 million
Charts: FRA#1 SVI#4 ITA#4
"No Promises"
Released: 2007
Label: Naïve
FR. sales: 400,000
Charts: FRA#1 SVI#1 ITA #10 EU #1
External links
(Carla Bruni official website)
(Carla Bruni from catwalk to Elysee) ,"Expatica", 2008-02-11
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Carla Bruni.
