Stars and their Quebec ancestors: the most beautiful voice in France is a Guimond from America

Bill Murray, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, George Clooney.

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16 July 2022 Saturday 21:47
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Stars and their Quebec ancestors: the most beautiful voice in France is a Guimond from America

Bill Murray, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, George Clooney. Richard Darbois made them all.

Dubbing specialist, he is the French voice of the big movie stars. Known for his deep voice, it is said to be the most beautiful in France.

An actor by trade, Darbois made humble beginnings in adult films.

Richard Darbois was born Richard Guimond on December 7, 1951 in Montreal. He is the son of Olivier Guimond (1914-1971), who needs no introduction, and Jeanne-d'Arc Charlebois (1920-2001), imitator of La Bolduc.

The couple married in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, while touring one of the many little Canadas in the diaspora. When they separated in 1955, Jeanne-D'Arc left for a career in France, where she took the artist name of Jeanne Darbois, the name of the Maid being too heavy to bear in France for a girl from Verdun. .

Ti-Zoune

Olivier Guimond was born in Montreal. But his father, the no less famous Ti-Zoune (1893-1954), grandpa of Pôpa and Môman Paré, Uncle Georges and Madame Jigger, was a child of the diaspora, born in Sudbury according to some sources, in Pembroke according to others.

His grandfather, Pierre Guimond (1827-1909), shoemaker originally from Saint-Jérôme, had settled in Pembroke at the time when Curé Labelle dreamed of populating northwestern Quebec and northern Ontario. to Manitoba to counter the exodus to the United States.

A shoe shiner at the Ottawa train station, Olivier Sr really started at the bottom... of the ladder. It was there that he was scouted by Arthur Petrie, always on the lookout for new talent for his troupe of acrobats. From his first appearance on stage, it is a success. Guimond has charisma and a sense of punch. Petrie baptizes him Ti-Zoune. Nothing to do with the jokes at the bottom of the belt!

On April 8, 1914, at St-Jacques-le-Mineur church (only the UQAM steeple remains today), he married Euphemia MacDonald (1897-1996), a young Scottish dancer; Olivier will be born on May 21... Oliver in fact, since the most famous comedian in Quebec had an English first name that we Frenchified.

The first miracle of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré

“I have almost no fingers anymore […]. We are three French people here who were tormented together [...] The Iroquois made us dance around the fire [...] there were more than forty of them and kicked us into it. »

The end of the first Guimond of America was not comical.

Originally from Perche, the life of Louis Guimond (1625-1661) in New France was anything but banal. A few years before the tragic events, afflicted with great pain in the kidneys, Louis moved with difficulty on the construction site of the chapel of Beaupré.

To cure his illness, he places three stones in the foundation, invoking the good Saint Anne. His kidneys are healing (the stones have passed). The news spreads throughout the colony. This is the beginning of the miracle industry on the “Coste des Beaux Prés” that Pope Francis will soon come to bless.

GUIMOND, Olivier (1914-1971)

CHARLEBOIS, Joan of Arc (1920-2001)

► Married May 16, 1946, Woonsocket, R.I.

GUIMOND, Olivier (1893-1954)

MACDONALD, Effie (1897-1996)

► Married April 8, 1914, St-Jacques-le-Mineur, Mtl

GUIMOND, Napoleon (1860-1944)

LEGARE, Ursule (1860-1937)

► Married July 1, 1883, Pembroke, Ontario

GUIMOND, Pierre (1827-1909)

GOYER, Domithilde (1824-1899)

► Married May 23, 1848, Terrebonne