“She could make a grown lion tremble.” That’s how Alain Bernardin, Crazy Horse Paris founder, described Galia Paderzska, the Polish showgirl who became one of Paris nightlife’s great sensations in the 1970s, first at the Casino de Paris, and later at Crazy Horse Paris, debuting in 1974.

A classically trained dancer, Galia had already built a serious career before cabaret, working as a soloist at Warsaw’s National Opera. 

Short-haired, blonde and blue eyed, this Slavic beauty was constantly promoted as one of the defining faces of the cabaret, alongside icons like Lova Moor and Polly Underground. In 1976, while Alain Bernardin was filming “Crazy Horse de Paris”, a multi million-dollar movie about the venue, she was featured prominently. Even within a cast made up entirely of glamorous and highly charismatic women, she stood out.

“—Are you modest?—Yes, very much. Not on stage, but shy and modest in everyday life.” She said in a 1976 interview.

Her solo act was a masterclass of Polish iconography: on her head, a Prussian Pickelhaube helmet, nodding to Poland’s long military history and around her neck the Polish Cross of Merit of the interwar years.

She emerged from total darkness and sat on a wooden chair with the composure of an army general. Cigarette in hand, she slowly spun across the stage. The sequence survives as one of the film’s most unforgettable scenes.

The movie was conceived as an ambitious way to introduce the cabaret to audiences far beyond France.

Selected for a major screening at the 30th Cannes Film Festival, Bernardin planned a huge publicity stunt: flying the showgirls featured in the film to walk the red carpet in May 1977, transforming them into international celebrities before the world’s press.

But two months earlier, on February 18, 1977, Galia was found dead in her apartment in Paris. Her death was covered by international media.

Though absent from Cannes, Galia still arrived there in another form: immortalized on screen. When Crazy Horse de Paris premiered, her image received an ovation. A beautiful kind of final curtain call.