Jenny Alpha

Jenny Alpha (22 April 1910 – 8 September 2010) was a Martinique-born French actress and singer, who appeared in more than a hundred theatre productions and movies.

Born in Fort-de-France, Martinique in 1910, Alpha moved to Paris in 1929 to pursue a career in teaching but became sidetracked due to her passion for theatre.

At the end of the thirties, she meets Jacques Dessart in Paris who will become her first husband. Since he was originally from the Nice area, they leave Paris during the war to stay with his family, who owned land. He will die prematurely and her in-laws will throw her out.

In 1947, Jenny Alpha is chosen as a model by artist Lemagny (grand Prize of Rome) for a French postal stamp to represent the Martinique.

In 1956 she attends the first Conference of Black writers where she met Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Richard Wright, Langsthon Hugues.

After her career in Jazz club, she gets her breakthrough in theatre in 1984 in La folie ordinaire d’une fille de Cham by French writer Julius Amédée Laou. and in 2008 recorded a final album, La sérénade du muguet. She died on 8 September 2010 in Paris, France.

In June 2013, a place was named in her honor in the 15th area of Paris, Place Jenny Alpha, not far from where she lived for three decades.