Photo of Jacques Chazot (?) from a cabaret performance of Darius Milhaudâs âLe Boeuf sur le Toitâ held at the eponymous cafĂŠ, early 1920s.
Jacques Chazot (1928â1993), a model in Montparnasse in 1945, posing for painters and sculptors to pay for his dance lessons, only began frequenting Le BĹuf sur le Toit in 1946/47.
He became a principal dancer at the Paris Opera in 1956.
In 1919, upon his return from Brazil, the composer Darius Milhaud adapted a popular song of the time, "O Boi no Telhado" (in English, "The Ox on the Roof"). This melody, offered to Jean Cocteau for the ballet-concert project he was developing, adopted the title "Le BĹuf sur le Toit," a literal translation of the Brazilian song.
The group Les Six, Cocteau at the piano, Darius Milhaud standing on the left
In 1921, the bar, relocated to 28 rue Boissy-d'Anglas, took the name "Le BĹuf sur le toit". Over time, this establishment, a meeting place for the Parisian intelligentsia of the interwar period, became such a cultural icon that the common belief in Paris was that Milhaud had named his ballet-comedy after the bar, when in fact it was the other way around.


















