There is a popular French blog that I follow and is a mixture of photos and occasional pieces about characters, books, and movies. My French is hopeless, and I appreciate that Google allows me to right click and translate it into dodgy English.

I like the blog, but today I have inadvertently discovered that what I took to be cleverly written pieces are really a collection of plagiarised snippets from other websites.

It came to light after researching a story it had featured about Jean-Claude Brialy, a French actor from the 1950s and 1960s, Yves Montand, the Italian-born French actor and singer, and Reda Caire, a popular singer in Paris from the 1930s to the 1950s. I found that the story existed word for word in several places.

A synopsis.

Brialy once claimed that Montand had a nine-month gay affair with Reda Caire while working as his private secretary.

Helene Hazara, a cultural critic, radio hostess and expert on French chanson, wrote that “everyone in show business knew that Montand had been Caire’s lover. In the ’50s, Montand used to make homophobic jokes about Reda, who called him up one day and said, ‘If you say nasty things about me, I can also tell stories about you!’”

But Caire, speaking about Montand, also came up with the best and bitchiest line. ”It is odd that a boy with such a beautiful membrum should have such smelly feet.”