Gitane was born on 16 May 1958 in San Francisco, although she was brought up in Santa Cruz. Her musical ability first manifested itself when she was just six years of age, when she came first in a talent contest for all the pupils at her elementary school. However, her natural shyness took the better of her and she was unable to repeat the performance. The one occasion that she did go back on stage, when she was nine, she totally froze and wasn't able to sing at all.

Her early musical influences were reflected in the bands that her sister, ten years her elder, and her brother listened to. This included The Beatles, T-Rex, Pink Floyd, Jim Morrison, David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix. In fact 'A Band of Gypsies' by Hendrix' was the first record that Gitane ever bought.

Gitane went through a very self-destructive period during her teenage years, dabbling with Mysticism, Satanism, Witchcraft and Voodooism. The rebelliousness may have been brought about by not receiving enough attention from her parents, who were always too busy to spend much time with her. She enjoyed listening to, and singing along to music and admired the masters such as Janis Joplin, Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone and Gitane's favourite singer, Billie Holliday.

Gitane moved out of her parental home when she was 17 and went to live with a boyfriend who was guitarist and into Punk music. She met a girl who sang in a band suggested that she start singing. She practised a lot and soon wanted to sing in a band herself. She joined her first band when she was eighteen years old, she describes the band  as "just a bunch of us kids getting together and doing AC/DC and Black Sabbath". They would rehearse in a garage and perform at parties. Another heavy metal type band, named Ledger, followed. Gitane remembers that the did a few gigs a some bars, and they entered a Battle of the Bands at Gazzarri's, which they actually won! The strain of singing this type of music soon took its toll. At one performance during a party, the PA system wasn't loud enough so Gitane used all her volume and the next day she discovered that she had lost her voice by bursting her vocal chords and developing nodules. After saving up some money she visited a specialist doctor in Beverly Hills to check out her vocals cords, and he advised her that she would never be able to sing again. Gitane, however, did not accept this and tried taking a vocal technique class to get some ideas about singing, after all she had not received any vocal training up to that point in her life, and started to sing softer songs by Billie Holliday and the other great female singers who managed to bring such emotion to their voices.

After studying creative arts in San Francisco, Gitane moved to Los Angeles and began singing in 1981. She had placed an ad in a paper asking for anyone who was wanted to form a band which could not be categorized into any musical style. Valor responded to the ad, and they formed a band with drummer David Parkinson. They recorded an album and a single together just one month after forming and developed a following in Hollywood. The band performed concerts around Los Angeles supporting such acts as 45 Grave, TSOL and Christian Death. Their music developed into more of a "dark Pop" sound, but although they did further work in the studio, no other songs were ever released. Their appeal was such that A&M Records
became interested in signing them.

It was Autumn 1983 when Valor and David Parkinson first met Rozz Williams. Rozz had been given he opportunity to tour Europe by his French record company, although at that time the first incarnation of Christian Death had split up due to drugs problems and internal feuding. Valor and David were interested in joining Rozz on the tour, and announced to Gitane that Pompeii 99 had come to an end. At the time, Gitane had just fallen pregnant and thought that she would not be needed in the new band. However Rozz wanted to meet Gitane, and the occasion would be at a party on 6 November 1983  held to celebrate Rozz's 20th birthday. Gitane remembers that it was "an incredible party. There was Rozz surrounded by a hundred women dressed in drag." However Rozz enjoyed meeting Gitane and invited her to be in the band as backing vocalist and keyboardist. They started performing at clubs in Los Angeles such as The Roxy and Fenders Ballroom before flying out to France. They performed some shows before spending time at Rockfield Studio in Wales to record Catastrophe Ballet. More shows were performed after the album was recorded. It was during this tour that Sevan was born.

The band returned to America later in 1984 and recorded the Ashes album. Performances were given in America to support its release, and an Italian tour had been arranged for June 1985. However, Rozz telephoned Gitane just days prior to departure to Italy telling her that he was leaving the band and asking her to stay in Los Angeles too so that they could work together with producer Eric Westfall. Gitane had worked with Eric before during her time with Pompeii 99 and really wanted to stay and work with Rozz, particularly since her relationship with Valor had broken up at that time. But Gitane thought it important that her son, Sevan grew up with his father and this was the deciding factor, even though she knew it wouldn't be the same without Rozz in the band.

Although her passion and interest in the music of Christian Death diminished after Rozz had left the band, she kept practising her singing and tried to develop as an artist as well as trying to maintain her relationship with Valor and looking after their son.
They had another child together, called Zara, who was born in 1987 during recordings for The Scriptures album.

Although it came as a complete surprise to many fans, Gitane's decision to leave Christian Death was not taken on the spur of the moment. In fact, she had made her mind up to quit the band a long time before, and felt that the right time to quit and go her own way would be after the final show of the Sex and Drugs and Jesus Christ world tour, a triumphant performance at The Marquee in London on 10 June 1989.

Gitane had actually been working on solo material for a couple of years, for which Valor had given help and guidance, but nothing had come of it. Her first solo concert was in fact in Hollywood in 1985 where she performed a tribute to her idol Billie Holliday. At New Year's Eve 1988 Gitane was introduced to free jazz performance at the underground jazz club Thelonius in Rotterdam. Frank Wright (who had played saxophone in John Coltrane's band) asked Gitane to join him on stage with his 13 piece band. Gitane then frequently visited the club, and tendered behind the bar at in order to pay for her and her children's ticket over there and back again, during breaks with Christian Death.  On 11 May 1989 Gitane had also given her  first European solo performance at the club Mazzo in Amsterdam on 11 May 1989, accompanied only by the gave a special free jazz performance at the Mazzo in Amsterdam, accompanied only by the acoustic bass of Bert Schop, of the Frank Wright Quartet. An audio recording and a three song video of this concert were later made available through Heaven & Hell Productions.

Always preferring exciting, raw performances, Gitane had become disinterested with the role she was being asked to play in Christian Death, describing the music as rigid and unspontaneous. It just did not have the same intensity or feeling as earlier periods in the band's history, Gitane often citing the recording of the Catastrophe Ballet and Atrocities albums as being the most creative and productive of her time in the band. She also felt guilty working under the name of Christian Death, a band which belonged to Rozz Williams. It was only because she was with Valor that she decided to carry on working with him, although she stopped writing for the band.

Another reason why Gitane no longer enjoyed performing in the band was that Kota, James Beam and John Isaacs had all quit, or were about to quit and Gitane saw them all as good friends, and not just band mates. She would miss not having them on stage.

In addition, she had separated with Valor and wanted some independence by starting a new, if uncertain, chapter in her life.

So the morning after the Marquee concert, Gitane packed her bags and left for a new life in Amsterdam travelling with three Dutch members of the crew on the tour, including Jack Noordhoek. Her children, Sevan and Zara initially stayed behind with Valor. However, just after a few months Gitane could see how much of an effect the break up with Valor was having on their lives, and they came to live with her.

Once settled in Holland, Gitane travelled across the border to Belgium to meet  Marc Ickx. One of the Christian Death crew had done some video work with Marc and he had arranged for them to meet.  Marc liked the sound of her voice and they spent one night improvising together in a studio. The results were very good and they knew that they would work together one day to record some songs.

Gitane had been asked to give a performance at the Festival of Perversity in Nijmegen, Holland on 3 October 1989. Without a proper band, Gitane took the opportunity to combine art performance with music being handcuffed and bound on the stage while backing tapes and sound effects were provided by a friend. Only five songs were performed, including Passion, Pleasure and Pain, Incendiary Lover and Love for Sale. It was at this time that she met Matthijs Vos, composer and arranger of theatrical productions and performer of experimental music. Together with James Beam they recorded Gitane's first demos.

Gitane began working with James Beam, experimenting and developing a sound that she wanted. Occasionally they would perform impromptu concerts, such as a show in a Devon nightclub where they had been invited by the headline act to give a short set. Former Christian Death guitarist, Nick the Bastard, also performed with them that evening together with several other guest musicians. They entitled this unrepeatable performance 'Nebulous Genital' and although they received warm applause and invitations for more gigs, there would never be another 'Nebulous Genital' evening.

Gitane found it difficult first of all to combine her duties as a full-time mother with attempting to establish herself as a recording artist in Holland. Although she had recorded a five song demo, record companies just did not want to know and nobody seemed interested in the music or the fact that Gitane had become a solo artist. She felt out of touch with her old, Gothic audience, and this led to her beginning to experiment with musicians from other genres, trying to find the right people to work with.

Gitane was on the verge of quitting singing altogether, when a television documentary about her entitled 'The Dark Side of Life' was broadcast on Dutch television in 1991. She had spent a week with a TV crew and talked about her life and interests as well as giving several musical art performances. In fact part of a film script, entitled 'Leatherheart',  that Gitane had written was included in the feature and, although it gained some interest from some independent filmmakers, unfortunately it has not yet been commissioned. However, Gitane has featured in a film, entitled Slime, made by Nico B. 'It's like we come from slime and we dissolve into slime', is Gitane's comment on her role in the film.

The documentary won her interest from varied sources, not least a  photograph of her kneeling blindfolded with a gun in her mouth - and dressed in rubber. The photograph had been taken in 1990 by Jan-Willem Steenmeijer and would later appear on the Lullabies for a Troubled World CD cover.

Gitane accepted an invitation to headline the Skin Two 'Euro-Perv Party' in the middle of 1991, during which she was blindfolded and handcuffed to a chair on stage, while a female dancer acted out different roles around her. This culminated with Gitane being teased with a whip by the Mistress. This caused quite a reaction in both the British and Dutch press, reporting falsely that Gitane had engaged in sex acts on stage with another woman. The News of the World ran the headline 'Royal at Rubber Sex Orgy' as apparently the 108th person in line to the throne was in attendance that evening.

More fetish shows/parties  followed, including one for the DeMask, the specialist bondage gear  makers. This would prove to be the start of a collaboration between Gitane and DeMask, as she would wear their outfits on publicity photo shots, such as her record covers, and also for live performances.

Gitane's first solo record was recorded in September and October 1991. Based on a melody that she had written while still in Christian Death, 'A Heavenly Melancholy' was a dance project featuring a mix of jazz vocals, dance beats provided by Pulsemaster 'E' Smidt  (drums and keyboard programming) and also Pieter Rekveldt (piano and keyboard programming) and loud guitars courtesy of  James Beam. Inge Sax, the girlfriend of Jos Otto, also provided Saxophone for the record, which was backed by 'Lover'. It was produced by Ken Thomas who had also worked with The Sugarcubes and Cabaret Voltaire. Melody Maker made it number 5 in the Pick of the Week.

Gitane had now begun writing songs with fetish and sado-masochistic themes and was finding that art performance distracted her concentration for her singing, and therefore decided to remove this aspect from her act but still keeping the image.

While visiting London in 1992, Gitane repaid James Bean for performing on her debut single by singing one song with his new band, Nothingville, at a concert in a pub called The Cock.

It was around this time that Gitane put forward a song she had recorded, a cover of Manic Depression by Jimi Hendrix, for a radio competition. She had entered using the name Anti-Therapy. The song actually won the competition and was played and later discussed on air, the judges describing it as 'too disturbing to ignore'.

Gitane's next record, a four song EP called Lullabies for a Troubled World, was recorded live in the studio with no additional overdubs. It was released in 1993. All songs were written by Gitane, except for the piano melody in Revolution of Love which was written by Pieter Rekveld. The other musicians involved were John Isaac (drums and percussion), Sjaak Beemsterboer (bass) and Inge Sax (saxophone).

To support the release of the EP,  Gitane performed a selection of dates across Europe, with one show, at the ISC Club in Bern on 3 June 1993 released on the CD entitled 'Love for Sale'. Her band consisted of Pieter Rekveldt (keyboard, percussion), John Isaac (drums, percussion, keyboard), David Hammink (bass) and Inge Sax (saxophone).

By August 1993, Gitane had decided she wanted to record an album exploring the themes of alternative sexuality and she asked Marc Ickx to join her in the venture. With the exception of Perv, which had already been written and performed during the earlier European concerts, all the other songs featured on the album, which was called Never Felt So Alive, were written spontaneously over an intensive 4 month period. The music, which was very electronic, was written by Gitane, Marc and Pieter Rekveldt, but the sexually explicit lyrics were written by Gitane alone. The album was recorded and mixed from November 1993 through to February 1994 in Belgium and released under the name of Demonix - a combination of Demone and Ickx.

A month before the recording of the album commenced, Gitane took a momentous decision to travel from her home in Amsterdam to Germany to see Rozz Williams perform during his Daucus Karota tour in October 1993. This would be the first time that they had seen each other since Rozz had left Christian Death in 1985, although she had received a letter from him in 1989 after she had left Christian Death and had given an interview in which she came out against Valor. In the letter, Rozz had said that he wanted to get in touch with her, and even record with her again. However, still feeling guilty about continuing under the Christian Death name when Rozz had left the band in 1985, she did not reply and was now unsure of what kind of reaction to expect meeting him again after so many years. She remembers being so nervous travelling to the concert that she was sick on the way after smoking the strongest marijuana she could find in Amsterdam. Her fears were unfounded, however, and they discussed musical ideas backstage before and after the performance. Rozz had plans to return to Europe in 1994 for a month long series of concerts, his first European shows outside of Germany for ten years, and asked Gitane to be the main support act on the tour. Gitane did not take a moment to accept this invitation.

The tour kicked off in Bruges, Belgium on 4 November 1994 and would include performances in France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Corpus Delicti were also on the bill for many of the concerts.  All the same personnel were included in the band, except for Inge Sax. Gitane would sometimes thrill audiences during the tour by joining Rozz on stage during his act to perform Sleepwalk and Lament. Cleopatra Records released a recording Gitane's set at  MJC Picaud in Cannes on 19 November 1994, also including the two songs which she sang with Rozz.

It was during this tour that Rozz and Gitane discussed the possibility of recording together, originally inspired by them wanting to cover In Every Dreamhome a Heartache by Roxy Music and Manic Depression by Jimi Hendrix. With the exception of Flowers, which Rozz had written and performed in 1994, the rest of the songs featured on the Dream Home Heartache CD were created during the 8 days spent in the studio in Gent, Belgium between 28 March 1995 and 5 April 1995. Pieter Rekfelt was also involved in writing the music for three of the songs, and David Hammink played bass. The CD was produced by Ken Thomas. Rozz and Gitane celebrated the ending of the recording of the album by giving three special performances together, in Rotterdam, Bochum and near Paris. Pieter, David and John completed the line-up of the band.

They both enjoyed the experience of  performing on stage together that they toured America in December 1995 and even played a show in Mexico City where five thousand fans rioted after being  turned away as the concert was sold out. A successful six date British tour followed in April 1996, with James Beam on guitar.

Gitane started working on lyrics and music for new songs on what would be her first full length solo album, tentatively titled Illuminating Shadows. Songs already written included Living on Velvet and Speed and Gitane intended to have her band record the songs in 1997.  However Nico B, her partner and manager, wanted to live in Los Angeles and so they moved there in November 1996. Unfortunately by January 1997, their 8 year relationship ended and it took Gitane some time to decide what she wanted to do with the new songs, particularly since she no longer had anyone to work with. Eventually Gitane decided to release the recordings she had already made of the songs in Jos Otto's studio in Rotterdam and at Mark Icks's studio in Gent. Gitane  performed most of the instrumentation herself, except for some songs which included Jos Otto on guitar, David Hammink, Jan Beste and Extasy on bass and  Peter Terlow on drums. The recordings were arranged and produced by Gitane. The album, Am I Wrong?, was eventually released in 1998 through Hollows Hill Sound Recordings in America, and Apollyon in Germany, where an extra track, Alien, was included together with a different version of Obituaire. The artwork for this release was started by Erik Christides, who died before it could be completed. Gitane had described him as the 'dearest fiend that I have ever known'.

While still in Europe, Gitane took the opportunity to make guest performances for other bands, most notably Phallus Dei, Goethes Erben and LCD. She continued his trend when she moved to America by becoming vocalist for bis Ende - a band consisting of Christian Omar Madrigal Izzo on bass guitar, keyboards and drum samples and Brian Carlson on cello and drums

Hypnotic, an offshoot of the Cleapatra Records label, approached Gitane to become involved in an experimental  techno project, intended to introduce her to the gothic-electro-fetish circuit. The resulting album, The Happy Hour, was released in 1997.

Gitane put together a new band to tour perform at Billboard Live in America. The band consisted of Kenton Holmes (guitar),
Israel Medina (bass) and Justin Bennett (drums).

A German tour was arranged for May 1998 which saw David on bass in place of Israel. On 14 May 1998, Israel hung himself. He was severely depressed at the death of Rozz the previous month.

An American tour took place at the end of 1998. The band consisted of Kenny (drums), Adry V (bass) and Jonny (guitar).

All the tracks that Gitane had song on during her period with Christian Death were collected together and released as 'Life in Death  in 1999 through Hollows Hill Sound Recordings. The artwork for the CD was designed by Gitane herself, also including many photographs from her time with the band.

A song featuring Gitane's vocals is featured in the movie The Rage: Carrie 2

In April 1999, Gitane travelled to Germany to provide vocals for the new Dreadfull Shadows album. The band performed five shows in America in June. The band consisted of  Gitane, Kenton and Adry. Brian, the drummer for the support band, Falling Janus, also played drums for Gitane for these shows.

Gitane then performed at a festival in San Diego on 16 June 1999. The band consisted of  Adry (bass), Bob (drums), Ivan X - Adry's brother - as guest guitarist, and Melissa (keyboards)

Gitane and Adry travelled to Belgium to perform alongside The Creatures and many other bands at the Dour Festival on 10 July 1999.