Monika: You have written noir and horror, genres in which you often explore violence, cruelty and the darker sides of human nature. Did approaching a real life rather than a fictional one change the way you dealt with those themes?
Gloria: As an author and screenwriter, my narrative path is actually quite varied and is not limited to noir or horror. Besides prose fiction, I am the editor of a cultural magazine, and in recent years I have devoted myself to very different biographical projects: in just a couple of weeks, 24 ORE Cultura will publish a new graphic biography of Giovanni Segantini, the renowned Italian Divisionist painter, written by me and once again illustrated by Luca Conca, which we have been working on for the past two years. When you work with genre fiction, drama, tension and psychological conflict are tools at the service of the fiction and the plot.
In the biography of a real person, however, the perspective changes radically: suffering, trauma and personal hardship are not plot devices or genre artifices, but lived experiences. In my view, this requires great ethical rigor and a sober, professional eye: the domestic violence Coccinelle suffered in childhood, or the harshness of her life, were never sensationalized or bent toward sensationalism, but conveyed with restraint and respect, with the sole aim of helping the reader understand the cultural, psychological and human context in which this person was formed and made her own way.
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"Coccinelle: Chercher la femme" Drawing by Luca Conca. |
Monika: Coccinelle's childhood with a violent and authoritarian father is important in the book. How difficult was it to reconstruct that private world without reducing her entire adult personality to the trauma of her childhood?
Gloria: It was a considerable methodological challenge, because her difficult family environment and violent father figure undoubtedly marked her early youth, but reducing a complex life path to childhood trauma alone would have been an error of oversimplification. We showed those origins to make clear the context of deprivation and tension she came from, but her artistic determination and her hunger for redemption were personal responses, not mere reactions to childhood trauma.
Monika: Coccinelle's story contains an extraordinary transformation from a frightened and constrained child to an internationally celebrated performer. What did you discover about the young person that helped you understand the adult star?
Gloria: I discovered extraordinary tenacity and a visceral love of show business from earliest childhood. Even in the darkest moments, the stage and the world of theatre were a lifeline for her, a way to save herself and to fulfil herself. That same determination carried Coccinelle through her first steps, from working as a hairdresser to the Madame Arthur cabaret, and it is the strength that guided her throughout her life.
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| "Scrapbook #2" Album. Digital Transgender Archive. |
Monika: How did you want to portray Coccinelle’s transition from a boy to a woman, particularly the personal experience behind that transformation rather than simply the medical or legal aspects of it?
Gloria: We concentrated on emotional experience, intimate motivations and human relationships. The medical operation in Casablanca with Dr. Burou and the subsequent legal step guided by the lawyer Robert Badinter are fundamental historical milestones that we documented precisely, but what interested us was her inner drive, her indomitable desire to live with dignity and in harmony with herself, paying personally for every choice.
Monika: The book follows her life chronologically. How did you decide which moments deserved an entire scene and which important events had to be compressed or left out?
Gloria: We selected the turning points, both emotional and professional: the debut at Madame Arthur, her rise to stardom at the Carrousel and the Olympia, the great loves, but also the moments of financial crisis and her estrangement from France. When you write a graphic biography, every scene must have both informational value and visual force, so connecting events or purely bureaucratic ones were condensed so as not to weigh down the pace of the narrative.
Monika: A biographical comic inevitably turns historical research into dialogue, gestures, facial expressions and private moments that were not necessarily recorded. Where did you draw the line between reconstructing a plausible scene and imagining one?
Gloria: The line is drawn rigorously by historical plausibility and by the testimonies of those directly involved: we did not invent facts or distort chronologies. When the documentation did not provide the dialogue word for word, we stuck to the established personalities of the protagonists and the spirit of the era, making sure that every word spoken was consistent with the real character of the people involved.
Monika: What kinds of sources were most valuable to you: contemporary newspaper articles, interviews with people who knew her, photographs, films, archival material, or Coccinelle's own words?
Gloria: Cross-referencing the different sources was essential. Coccinelle’s autobiography and period articles gave the public picture and her own feelings, but direct interviews with people who knew her, such as Thierry Wilson, and Bambi’s book were decisive for verifying the facts, correcting inaccuracies and errors widespread on the web, and grasping her true private essence.
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"Coccinelle: Chercher la femme" Drawing by Luca Conca |
Monika: Was there a particular source that radically changed your understanding of Coccinelle after you had already begun writing the book?
Gloria: My conversations with Thierry Wilson allowed me to scale back some romanticized or inaccurate anecdotes found in the tabloids and even in the artist’s first autobiography, leaving us with the picture of an extremely generous person, at times naive in financial matters, but endowed with deep dignity and gentleness.
Monika: Coccinelle was famous for controlling her image very carefully. Did researching her make you think differently about the relationship between the person she was and the persona she created on stage?
Gloria: Absolutely. Coccinelle was a meticulous professional who built her persona drawing inspiration from the elegance of classic divas such as Marilyn Monroe or Brigitte Bardot. On stage the public figure was impeccable, magnetic and constructed down to the smallest detail, but in private life, by contrast, she sought domestic tranquillity and sincere affection.
Monika: One of the most fascinating things about Coccinelle is that she apparently refused to see herself simply as a representative of a category and instead saw herself as a star. How important was that distinction to you while writing her?
Gloria: It was essential. Coccinelle never claimed to become an ideology or a political banner: her primary goal was to be an artist loved by her audience and to live her own life freely and with dignity. This individual pride and her rejection of opportunism were the compass with which I portrayed her in the screenplay.
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| "Scrapbook #2" Album. Digital Transgender Archive. |
Monika: Today Coccinelle is often discussed primarily as a pioneer of trans history. Did you ever worry that emphasizing that historical importance could overshadow her talent as a singer, dancer, actress and entertainer?
Gloria: Yes, and that was precisely one of the main reasons that drove Luca and me to make this book: if Coccinelle is reduced to a mere label of the past or a curiosity of social history, one ends up forgetting that for decades she was a top-billed star of music-hall and variety theatre, able to enchant audiences from Paris to Rio de Janeiro. Our work aims to give her back the recognition she deserves as a great performing artist.
Monika: Conversely, did you have to make a conscious effort not to let the glamorous entertainer overshadow the enormous significance of what she accomplished as a transgender woman in the 1950s and 1960s?
Gloria: We aimed for a natural balance: her decision to have her change of civil status made official, and to live openly at a time when society and the law imposed very severe restrictions, was in itself an act of enormous significance. There was no need to hammer the point home: simply showing her public life and the legal milestones she reached conveys the importance of her path, without any artifice.
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"Coccinelle: Chercher la femme" Drawing by Luca Conca |
Monika: Coccinelle had extraordinary encounters with people such as Marlene Dietrich and Maria Callas. How did you decide which famous relationships belonged in the narrative, rather than simply becoming a parade of celebrity cameos?
Gloria: We included only the encounters that reflected genuine friendships or key moments in her artistic and personal growth, such as, for example, her bond with Charles Trenet on the Côte d’Azur. We wanted to avoid the “parade of celebrities” effect, using these figures to bear witness to the professional esteem and the real affection that Coccinelle enjoyed in the cultural and entertainment world of her time.
Monika: You chose to show moments of Coccinelle's life outside the stage, including her relationships with other artists and her life at home. What did those quieter scenes reveal about her that her performances could not?
Gloria: They revealed her great humanity, her generosity and also a certain emotional vulnerability. Behind the limelight there was a person who loved cooking for her friends, who sought emotional stability and who often suffered from placing too much trust in unscrupulous managers or collaborators.
Monika: Coccinelle was celebrated internationally, performing from Paris to Rio, Dakar and Sydney. How did you convey the scale of that international career without losing the intimacy of the character?
Gloria: By alternating the big show scenes and world tours with shots and linking moments devoted to her inner dimension, such as her reflections, her letters, the conversations in the dressing rooms or the pauses between one tour and the next. In this way the reader travels with her around the world, but always remains anchored to her personal point of view.
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| "Scrapbook #2" Album. Digital Transgender Archive |
Gloria: Telling the story of the financial difficulties, the problems with the tax authorities and the forced estrangement from France requires great delicacy. It is not a pathetic “decline”, but the ups and downs of a real life and of an independent artist who had to come to terms with the changing tastes of the public and with the consequences of overly naive financial management. It was demanding, but necessary in order to convey the truth of her story.
Monika: There is something almost theatrical about Coccinelle's entire life, with triumph, reinvention, romance, scandal, travel, fame and eventually a kind of disappearance from the public imagination. Did you ever feel that reality itself was giving you scenes that sounded too extraordinary to be true?
Gloria: Many, many times, because Coccinelle’s life has such a rich natural dramatic structure that no work of fiction could have invented it so effectively. From the media-driven wedding in Montmartre to the adventures in Australia or South America, reality gave us extraordinary biographical material.
END OF PART 2
Main photo: Wikipedia.
© 2026 - Monika Kowalska
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