Regine Dies: Discotheque Entrepreneur, Singer And Actress Was 92
deadline.comRegine, who claimed to have invented the term “discotheque” as she ran a nightclub empire that stretched from Paris to Los Angeles, has died.
She passed on Sunday at age 92, according to her granddaughter. No cause was given.Born Regina Zylberberg in Belgium, Regine opened her first nightclub in Paris’s Latin Quarter in the 1950s, installing turntables and disc jockeys instead of the usual juke boxes.
Thus was born a new format, she claimed, the “discotheque.”“If you can’t dance, you can’t make love,” she said by way of explanation.
She apparently was right, as celebrities, royalty and the business elite flocked to her establishments, earning her the nicknme as the “queen of the night,” as her name became synonymous with the elite’s good times.Her venues included “Regine’s” in New York in the 1970s, and others in Miami, Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles.
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