Maxime
Sobriquet: Maxime
Appearance: Maxime is a man of discreet beauty, and with a beautiful voice. His brown hair is usually cut in the latest normal fashion, and his hazel eyes and his cute smile are enough to make most of the female stars he sponsor accept his invitation for a more intimate conversation.
He usually wears discreet clothes, and never appears as the most in touch in fashion. Still, acute study of his behavior, and of his clothes show that he succeed in coupling discretion so necessary to his work and avant-garde. His Sire, Arnaud, creates clothing just for him to wear, and this alone is enough to make him unique...
Behavior: Be cool and be calm. This is the motto of Maxime. His power in the show business is great indeed, and his pride is more than well-fed, so he remains in control, and rarely falls to self arrogance.
He is charming, and some believe he knows as much about any singer's secrets, past and voice as he knows each part of her body. This only applies to female stars, of course...
History
Maxime was a singer whose fame was just beginning to grow, just before the 1929 Crisis. Arnaud, the Toreador learned of him through his contacts, and decided to hear him. He was charmed by the physical appearance and the voice of the singer, as were most women in the room.
It didn't take Arnaud much time to convince Villon to give him the Right to Embrace Maxime. Maxime's talent was real, and moved the Toreador with emotions. The problem is that, as seems to happen all too often, the voice of Maxime never recovered from the Embrace. Of course, his voice was still beautiful, but it lacked now the little je-ne-sais-quoi that touched others deep in the heart. He was now as common as any other singer.
Arnaud was deeply sorry: He had destroyed an artist in the moment he had decided to save his voice for eternity. Maxime didn't take it well. Okay, he was now Kindred, but he now lacked his talent to move others. He had now to use his supernatural Presence to replace his talent. And the Toreador, his own Clan, seemed now to shun him.
Since then, Maxime has changed a lot. While he still tries to understand what's lacking to his perfect voice, he turned to other hobbies. He couldn't be a singer, but he could control the growing show-business milieu. Maxime bought and dominated his way into the French record business. In the Sixties, he took others by surprise by increasing his resources at the expense of singers of some talent and their fans. With the development of CDs, his control of the show-business increased. The advent of digital music,downloaded over the internet has caused him some grief though, as he feels his control slipping.
Maxime is now the secret master of a lot of production companies, and even took the control of the dreaded S.A.C.E.M. (Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique: Music Authors, Creators and Editors Society), which protect the rights of the songs (text and music) of all the French artists, even in other countries.
He also control so much the star system that French press must respect anyone of them, unless they want to risk being forbidden of any interview right to all the others. While the Toreador Beautés hold Maxime as successful, other Createurs and Interprêtes only see in his work commercial and so ventrue-like control over art. Anyway, his influence over the Daughters of Cacophony is great as Maxime and Constance reached an agreement to find the new stars before they are known and to present them to her for ability test.
The Embraces of Chris and Milady are the results of this accord. Anyway, Les Ruines became the first public experience of most new singers, thus being crucial for the carrier of each of them, and also increasing the status of the Elysium, as Toreador often haunt its balconies to hear new and refreshing talents.
Recent Events:
Notes
Maxime's power over show-business extends somewhat to the Movie Industry, and to the news and other magazines (be it TV-shows, radio or written press).
He is not above to killing an artist he believes is finished. By subtle Domination, or even simple murder, he thus makes them profitable (in money terms) for decades.
Maxime is a fan of cars, and of driving. He has driven any sport car built since the World War Two, and his collection of cars (still in perfect state) is awe inspiring.
Actual Aim: To find new talents.
Rumors: Maxime is in truth a Son of Cacophony (False).
Maxime has ties with the Setites (as any other Parisian Toreador...).
Credit to the Author: https://augias.org/pbn/maxime.htm
