French vocalist and actor Jean-Paul Vignon has died at the age of 89.
Vignon died on March 22 of liver cancer in Beverly Hills, his family have announced.
The US actor began his eight-decade career in New York when he opened for stand-up comic Woody Allen in 1963, and he went on to entertain on both sides of the Atlantic.
He voiced one of the Merry Men in Shrek (2001) and narrated the 2009 romantic comedy starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, 500 Days of Summer.
Alongside his acting work, Vignon was a successful singer. Signed with Columbia Records, he released his first U.S. album, Because I Love You, in 1964.
He starred on one Sunday night CBS variety show to sing a duet with the young Liza Minnelli, and appeared a total of eight times on the show.
In a 1994 the Los Angeles Times wrote a profile on Vignon, which said: ‘Vignon fulfilled the American image of the romantic, singing Frenchman.
‘Ironically, rather than compare his voice to such renowned Gallic crooners as Maurice Chevalier and Gilbert Bécaud, Vignon says that he has a Bobby Darin kind of voice, able to sing fast and passionate or gentle and slow.’
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