At the age of 28, the child star has really changed. Far from the gibes of her beginning, she works on her career and her happiness. All that is written in music on Bliss. The public adores. It was January 1988, in Cannes, the night of the MIDEM (ed.: the French Grammys) awards. Vanessa Paradis is 15 years old, she's already dethroned Madonna for the top spot of the Top 50, sold 3 millions copies of her single, and made the cover of Paris Match (ed.: the French People magazine). She's getting ready to sing her hit song: "Joe le Taxi." Whistles, boos, insults drown out her voice. "Tears were ready to pour," recalls Vanessa Paradis. "But no way was I going to give them that pleasure." Paradis clenches her teeth, takes the blows, and does not fold. This scene says much about her future: this girl has IT. She impresses more than enough people. In particular, she impresses director Jean-Claude Brisseau. Before selecting her for Noce Blanche (1989), he thoroughly studies a tape of MIDEM. "For me, there was no doubt. It was a hard role, but considering what she'd already lived, I knew Vanessa Paradis could take it." Since, looking at the road she's taken, plated in gold (her many triumphs) and splattered in mud (her many haters), the ex-teen queen took it all face-to-face with her rivals at the time. Elsa primarily. In short, one album with Serge Gainsbourg (1990), another with Lenny Kravitz, an ad for Chanel's Coco perfume, the films where she plays alongside Jeanne Moreau, Depardieu, Delon, Belmondo, Auteuil. "She is condemned to surprise, and sometimes to displease. She's a fighter," notes Etienne Roda-Gil, author of "Joe le Taxi" (and Julien Clerc's biggest hits). "Vanessa seems fragile," observed Marceline Lenoir, her agent. "To detect her strength, you need to look in her eyes." These days, Vanessa Paradis defends her fourth album, Bliss, which she wrote, composed, arranged, and produced a great deal of. A nomad of luxury, she feels at home in the salon of a high-class Parisian hotel. A sharp chignon, a black pocketbook, white tennis shoes, she always looks younger than her age: 28 years old next December 22. She grew up under the gaze of the press, like Sophie Marceau, whom she idolized as a child. Or rather under its surveillance. Vanessa is the only celebrity of her generation, and maybe even beyond, to "sell paper" without having anything to "sell." Her latest news was her pregnancy. A century thus separates the child-woman from the mother of Lily-Rose, 16 months old. Paradise, it's the Mitterand-Chirac years. A prime example of juxtaposition: she is both singer and actress, French and International, pop and rock, Saint-Germain-des-Pres and Sunset Boulevard (her two residences), daughter of the bourgeois (a grandfather in medicine) and of the proletariat (the other one, working at Renault). She goes between two planes and two continents, travels with tons of luggage (including fabrics to decorate her seat and a hundred CDs) and races against time. Moreover, a driver waits to take her to her horseback-riding lessons that she needs for her role as Isadora in The Man Who Kills Don Quixote. Director Terry Gilliam created the character for her. Vanessa Paradis receives 15 film scripts per month. Her paycheck for Noce Blanche was 300,000 francs. "She's one of the best paid French actresses," confirmes Marceline Lenoir. She reaches the summits, equal, or almost, to Juliette Binoche (ed.: the French Julia Roberts), who's asking price is estimated to be 6 million francs. Because her films are successful abroad, especially in Japan and in South-East Asia, and they attract large television audiences. "Things happen however they happen for Vanessa, and whatever happens, she always comes out on top," continues her agent. "Even in her private life." Paradis is, according to the tastes and the times, an icon or just an image, a muse or a media phenomenon. "She's not calculating," some plead. "She wants to be number 1 everywhere," others assure. "She's a fairy," fawns Patrice Leconte, who wrote The Girl on the Bridge gazing at a photo of Paradis. "She was adorable and touching," testifies Brisseau, "and brutally she revealed herself to be a total bitch, a spoiled brat." But also hypersensitive, a good listener, with good moods. "She's has a good sense of humour, especially about herself, which is practical," notes the singer Frank Monnet, one of the songwriters on her new album. But she can also be awkward, proud, and sentimental. "When she's not in agreement with you, she's fixed, straight, proud and unmoving," specifies a former collaborator. "I can be secret, an introvert," explains Vanessa Paradis, with that voice identifiable in three seconds. Her last album, Vanessa Paradis, was completely written by Lenny Kravitz. Those who appears in Bliss's credits are Matthieu Chedid, Franck Langolff, Didier Golemanas, and Johnny Depp, the father of her child, who co-wrote a few ballads. Hollywood star, the hero of Tim Burton films (Edward Scissorhands) or those of Jim Jarmusch (Dead Man), Johnny Depp is also a musician. The Paradis-Depp couple met at the Hotel Costes, a watering hole for the Parisian jet-set. A lot of ink is devoted to them in France and the USA. It rains lawsuits. As recently as yesterday, when journalists questioned her about her boyfriends, Vanessa Paradis responded: "This interview is going to hell." Or, soberly: "Zob (ed.: A nonsense word that means "I won't say a thing")." Bliss chronicles her love for Johnny, for their daughter Lily-Rose. "It's a paradox, I know," she acknowledges while rolling a cigarette. "There's a contradiction in the way I protect my private life... I could have made up a story, but it would have been too hard not to immortalize this splendid life on CD." No stopping her cry of happiness, Bliss, and in the midst of it no stopping her participation in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, with Johnny Depp as her co-star. "That wasn't something we sought out," she confesses. "But it was Terry Gilliam's wish, and I didn't want to tell him no." A blessing for the paparazzi. They've been following her since her liason with Florent Pagny. They ganged up on her during her adventure with Lenny Kravitz. Paradis deals with these instrusions with his iron hand. "It's necessary to attact without end, otherwise they win." "A paparazzi shot of Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp is unsaleable to the French press, apart from Voici," says a paparazzi agency. "Because they systematically sue." "I sue, but it's necessary to put things in their place," replies Vanessa. "The lawsuits last for months, they're very expensive, and all the money I won goes to the Reves Association (ed.: the French Make a Wish Foundation)." (She is the face of the association, which carries out the wishes of sick children). "Vanessa's been burned, she started all this very early in her life," exclaims Patrice Leconte, who's had her star in two of his films (Half a Chance, in 1998, and The Girl on the Bridge, in 1999). Everyone knows her history. As a child, she already knew her destiny. Her parents, Andre and Corinne Paradis, were 20 years old when she was born. Her father dropped out of school at 14, had 26 jobs before inventing a type of imitation wood. While she recorded "Joe le Taxi," he ran a company in the Val-de-Marne; her mother took care of the books. They never slowed her down. At the age of 8, she'd already sang on The School of Fans (ed.: the French Star Search). "I have magnificent parents, who always loved us a lot and raised us, my sister and me, with discussions. Thanks to them, I learned how to know what was good for me, to present my ideas, to defend them." Marc Lumbroso, the current CEO of EMI France, signed her in 1987. Virgin and Pathe had just refused "Joe le Taxi." The cassette arrived on his desk, at Polydor. Right away, he asked to meet Vanessa Paradis. "To make sure," he explained, "that she wasn't a child manipulated by stageparents or by her manager. After our meeting, I asked myself whether it was she who manipulated them." "She was just a little girl, but already Vanessa knew what she wanted and asked me to write a song for her to sing on the kids Eurovision (ed.: think Star Search again)," remembers Franck Langolff, the songwriter of "Joe le Taxi" and her first successes. "She answered my questions like a woman." "She was in control of everything," says Roda-Gil. "Vanessa was no Shirley Temple or trained monkey, but a woman who knew what she wanted. I love that, that impresses me." She also impresses England, where "Joe le Taxi" seizes the hit parades: "Vanessa Paradis can overcome mountains," writes Melody Maker (ed.: the English SPIN) magazine. They got with the program. Because Vanessa Paradis metamorphasized herself into a pouty little Lolita with torn jeans who undulated her hips on TV. She started trends -- hippie styles, bare midriffs -- and people copied her, but hated her. In the street, teenagers spat in her face, pulled her hair, treated her like a whore. She was a pocket-sized Bardot, remniscent of the Brigitte Bardot filmed by Louis Malle for the film Private Life. But Paradis was just 17 years old. She wasn't an angel, but nevertheless. "To be a object of envy of women, it's hard. In this business, you have to be a man," judged Gainsbourg. "All those early years were dramatically painful," she concedes, "I cried every day. However, I regret nothing. That helped me, perhaps, not to get a big ego. To fight for the things I believe in." To raise her gloves, so to speak. "I never had the stability of knowing that this life I'd dreamt about so fiercely would last. So, there was no question of abandoning it while there was still time." She can handle it and that is known. During the filming of Noce Blanche she acquired a collection of professional clashes, nervous breakdowns, AWOLs (she disappeared for three days). Brisseau confirms: "It was necessary for me to take charge on the film set." He also recognized that "Vanessa has a gift for acting. If she was stupid, she didn't show herself to be, because she underwent an enormous media rejection." "Instantly, she'd attracted the camera lens of the public," explains Margaret Menegoz, the film's producer. "She'd already had a past. More astonishingly, everything was controlled by her, not by her mother, who was present on the set. Because, if Vanessa makes her decisions alone, she carries out her decisions with good protection: her family. At th time, Didier Pain, her uncle and manager, acted as Cerberus." Her mother took care of -- and still takes cares of -- her business, her image, her archive. Gainsbourg enters the family circle with a witty catch phrase: "Paradis, it's hell!" But with the "Lolita schoolgirl," as he calls her, Gainsbourg doesn't control anything. Vanessa even rejects some of his lyrics. "I was raised on his music," remembers Vanessa Paradis. "My father adored him. It was thus a very important meeting for me. He was the most gentlemanly man I ever met, so delicate, soft, generous, even if wasn't always tender towards me. Gainsbourg was as follows: he would go from a storm to a sun in one minute." Variations on the Same Theme -- Love, the album signed by Gainsbourg, is worthy of a Victory (ed. a French Grammy) for the Best Singer of the Year. She's a big star: she is 18 years old and TF1 (ed.: think the French CBS/NBC/ABC) has just devoted a special hour of television to her. Chanel knocks on her door. Jacques Helleu, the artistic director at Chanel perfumes, "impressed by her presence" at the Cesar ceremony, where she was voted the Best New Actress thanks to Noce Blanche, chooses her for the Coco advert. "We chose Vanessa Paradis after Ines de la Fressange to do an 180-degree U-turn," he says. "There was an interview, that's true, but everything ended up in her favor." The contract, which spreads over several years, will pay her between 3 and 4 million francs. Paradis thus become The Frenchwoman, but the French insult her in the street. She gets on a plane to the U.S. "An escape?" asked Michel Denisot for Canal+ (ed.: the French HBO). "No," she replied. "Even if I was treated badly, I don't let anybody decide when I should go." In New York, where she settled, Vanessa Paradis worked alongside Lenny Kravitz on an American album destined to conquer the international market (700,000 copies are sold outside of France). Upon her return, everyone will love Vanessa, and initially Canal+, who will air two shows called Canal+ Loves Vanessa. Antoine de Caune also loves her on Nowhere Elsewhere (ed.: the French Saturday Night Live, a show on Canal+, where she was the 2nd person to host). "At the time it was popular to make fun of Vanessa Paradis," explains Nicolas Plisson, the advisor to Alain de Greef (general manager of programs). "Canal+ Aime Vanessa was an olive branch on the part of the channel. It wasn't a commercial ploy." Vanessa Paradis's image is fixed, it's a reality. She is 20 years old, and tempers her hypersexuality by repeating in a steady stream of interviews that she wants to be a mother. Teenagers, hardly younger than her, who calls themselves "Vanessettes and Vanessos," take the Olympia by storm. Tickets are sold for 500 francs on the black market. Onstage, she throws candies to those who threw stones at her. "Canal+ surely helped her image, especially with le grand public (ed.: think Middle America)," continues Nicolas Plisson. Vanessa Paradis is now a part of the Canal+ family (ed.: Canal+ aired the concert and a behind-the-scenes special). Michel Denisot asks her to sing "The Whirl of Life" in homage to Jeanne Moreau, for the opening of the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. The end of whistles. Vanessa Paradis devotes herself to the film world while a soul singer with a similar voice, Axelle Red, fills the vacuum which she left. Foreign directors, John Boorman and Adrian Lyne, think of her. In France, the producer Christian Fechner decides to pair this little princess (5'2, 110 lbs) with superstars (Depardieu, Delon, Belmondo...). When he visits her during her tour, in 1993, "to talk shop," he sees her getting out of a car, exhausted, a Labrador puppy in her arms, then settles herself at the arena where she will perform for an hour and a half straight. "Her loneliness, her bossy side, this girl who'd been singed by life -- I started to envision a film in my head," he says. The film will be Jean Becker's Elisa. After the concert, Fechner announces this as-yet unwritten project to Paradis, as though he does that all the time. "In my line of work, I'm supposed to be convincing. I gave it a try. She believed only in hard facts and would decide after reading the script. 5 months later, Fechner sends her Elisa. "In a way," he continues, "her way of looking at the world of movies, logic, lucid, hasn't brought her a lot of films." After Noce Blanche, Vanessa Paradis has only made four, all produced by him. Condemned to primarily commercial films, Vanessa Paradis took the independent film world by surprise, with The Girl on the Bridge. That got her nominated as one of the five best actresses at the 2000 Cesars. The specific reason: an eight-minute-long monologue. "Vanessa did that in one take. At the end of the shot, I cried," swears Leconte. "She prepared herself like an Olympic sprinter," certifies Fechner. "And did it one burst of passion." Movies are her "holidays." Not an intellectual, not a big reader -- with the exception of Philippe Djian's book -- Vanessa Paradis is a grand cinephile, who jumps from Marilyn or Brando to Tod Browning (Freaks) or Sautet (Cesar et Rosalie). She spends entire nights playing mah-jong, singing Souchon with Maxime le Forestier, playing DJ for her friends. You run into her at Eurodisney with her sister (Allison, 16), at thrift stores, at the market -- she loves to cook -- and in the shops. She has a passion for "muslin clothes and handbags." She's a late sleeper who surrounds herself with people. Time to fall in love. Johnny Depp and her are two rebels who have become wiser and preach a return to values. Whilst tidying up her life, Vanessa Paradis changed labels, work partners, friends. She deconstructed her inner "fortress" that was walling her in. Bliss is her story. "I am one of the people who pushed her to write, who helped give her wings," says Matthieu Chedid, who co-wrote several songs with her. "Vanessa is sharp and instinctive," says Frank Monnet appreciatively. "With her, you don't have to have the pretence of friendliness." She has a taste for the bizarre. She takes risks. She resists trends. Very early on, she took a good look at her media exposure, and supervised herself, protected herself. Her defensiveness can seem like an attack. She knows that she can't let herself light new fires. To a songwriter who offered her a polemical set of lyrics on the state of the music world, she replied: "Impossible. They'll hate me all over again and I'm only a little blonde."