Dubel, Marcel

Pianist and composer Marcel Dubelski, born in Paris, began composing songs in the late1930s. He wrote “Si c’est une blague” with lyrics by Louis Hennevé in 1938. In 1948, the Fernandel film “Émile l’africain” used his song (co-written with Joe Hajos) “Dans la broussse” in the soundtrack. An operetta he had composed, “Brigand d’amour,” was presented in Montreal in 1951/52 by the “Variétés Lyriques” company. In 1953, “Bonbon – Caramel,” a song he composed in 1953 with Edward Chekker with lyrics by Noel Roux, sung by Annie Cordy, became a hit and was included in the 1954 film “Boum sur Paris.” The same year he was director of the revue “Allez Zou” at the Célestin theater in Lyon. After World War II, the celebrated “Alcazar” music hall re-opened in Marseille, first in 1946 as a cinema and then in 1949 (by Robert Trebor) as a theater for operettas and variety shows; it featured rising stars like Charles Aznavour, Johnny Halliday, Sacha Distel and Jacques Brel; Dubelski’s marriage to one of the singers, Claude Trebor, the daughter of the boss, assured his job as pianist and conductor of the orchestra. It was around this time that Dubelski dropped the last three letters of his name to become Dubel. Their son Richard himself became a musician and actor, having grown up in the theater, accompanying his father on the drums from the age of six; Richard kept the name Dubelski. Competition from television spelled doom for the Alcazar, and so Dubel became its last orchestra leader when bankruptcy forced it to close in 1966.