Grégoire Élie Krettly, known professionally as Gérard Calvi, was born on 26 July 1922 in Paris, France, and became a French composer and conductor. After studying at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique during the war, he began his professional career in 1948 composing music for Les Branquignols, the theatrical troupe of Robert Dhéry and Colette Brosset. Over the following decades, Gérard Calvi produced a steady stream of work across multiple genres. His collaborations spanned celebrated performers such as Édith Piaf, for whom he composed "Le Prisonnier de la Tour" in 1946, as well as Liza Minnelli and Frank Sinatra, and he contributed music to numerous films, notably Le Petit Baigneur(1968) and Astérix le Gaulois (1967). Calvi also composed for theatre, creating operettas like La Polka des lampions(1961) and an opera based on Ionesco's La Cantatrice chauve, which premiered in 2009. Throughout his career he held leadership roles within SACEM, serving multiple times as president of its board of directors, and presided over the Académie nationale de l'opérette, reflecting his influence on French musical culture. Gérard Calvi passed away in Paris on 20 February 2015 at the age of 92, leaving a legacy of over 300 songs and 50 film, musical comedy, and opera scores.