Page 82 - The Economist20171214

82 The Economist December 16th 2017
Obituary Johnny Hallyday

hind, new ones found, as necessary. His
life-models were the rockers he heard on
the radio, including Lonnie Donegan, a
skiffle-player, whom he adored, and
Tommy Steele, as well as the American
greats. France had no music like that, and
when he began to make records, still a
teenager, he shotatonce to stardom. In 1961
hisfirstconcertsled to riotsin the streets; in
1963, 200,000 youngsters packed the Place
de la Nation, and climbed up trees, to hear
him. For a time his concerts were banned,
which only increased his cachet.
He wasaccused, too, ofbeinga fifth-col-
umnist for American cultural imperialism.
A silly charge, since he forced the songs
into (unsatisfactory) French, and since, in
best French mode, he was swiftly intellec-
tualised, compared to Victor Hugo and the
existentialists. Yet his love of America ran
deep, and not simply for musical reasons:
he took his name from the American hus-
band of a cousin, and his politics were of
the right. In later years he spent half his
time in Los Angeles, where his favourite
balade was to ride his Harley into the des-
ert and stay in small motels, adding spa-
A star for all seasons ghetti-Western cowboy to his characters.
America never reciprocated, or noticed
him in the street; it was hard, outside the
Francophone world, to explain exactly
what his point was.
The LA sojourns were part of his exile
from France for tax reasons. Money mat-
tersvexed him, and he ended up chronical-
JohnnyHallyday, France’s answerto rock’n’ roll, died on December6th, aged 74
lyin debtto hisrecord company, Universal,
HERE was something in his eyes. A The French thought they knew him, for loans it had made to him to help him
Tmysterious, shifting, narrow look, al- since hismanyexploitsmarital and sexual, scrape by, as well as €9m owing to the tax-
mosttoo light-blue: ofa catwho walked by and his brushes with drugs and death, man. He determined not to return to
himself, or of a man waiting in an alley filled the pages of magazines for all that France until the rich were no longer clob-
with a cigarette, the collar of his black time. But the real Johnny seldom revealed bered. In 2002, in full black leathers and
leather jacket turned up against the night. himself. In interviews, the boyish smile al- with the Tricolore painted on those cheek-
Or the look of a shape-shifting lizard ternated with the dead-eyed mask. The bones, he sang “Allez les Bleus!” to urge on
which, with age and weathering, Johnny man up there on the stage, winched in by the national football team; four years later
Hallyday increasingly resembled: living helicopter or raked by laser lights, was, he he found himself toying with citizenship
from day to day, adapting to every fashion, said, an actor playing the part of Johnny of Belgium, or moving to Switzerland.
at home in no particularplace. Hallyday. Itwasa good, seriouspart, letting France, he cried in his autobiography
He was France’s version of a whole him be whateverhe orhisfansdreamed of. “Dans mes yeux”, was a stifling place with
gamut ofstars. James Dean first, with pout, But whenever he stopped workinghe was, a sale mentalité. He didn’t miss it abroad,
quiff, jeans and guitar; then Elvis, le roi du as he had been born, Jean-Philippe Smet: but felt good wherever he was; just as ev-
rock; then MickJagger, shaggy-haired, strut- half-Belgian, ordinary, and the reverse of ery time he sang “Que je t’aime”, which he
ting in tight leather trousers; then some- his star-self. Le gros Belge, some friends had performed a thousand times since
thing like Engelbert Humperdinck, sweat- called him. It was no coincidence that his 1969, he sangitwith no weightofpast asso-
ing freely, white shirt open to the waist. He best film, of the handful he made, was Pa- ciation, but as a man might sing it to a
could be whisky-wild like Jerry Lee Lewis, trice Leconte’s “L’Homme du Train”, in woman he had only just met.
or a chansonnier in Charles Aznavour which he played the part of a bank robber So when a million people jammed the
mode. He could imitate Jacques Brel, with who swapped lives with a retired teacher, centre of Paris for his funeral, singing his
whom he visited bordels, orEdith Piaf, who ending up in delightful solitude in a book- songs, and roaringHarleysprocessed in his
ran herhand up histhigh when he met her, lined study where, for the first time, he honour; when President Emmanuel Mac-
or Jimi Hendrix, who astonished him by could wearslippers. ron gave the oration, saying that Johnny’s
playing his guitar with his teeth. He could songs had been the soundtrack of their
be anyone the French wanted, or anyone The fifth-columnist lives, and thathe had become a “necessary
they wished they had produced them- Solitude did not trouble him. He was used presence”, that presence was not quite as
selves, and cover in French any Anglo-Sax- to it, after a childhood that was fatherless comfortingly evocative as Proust’s made-
on song they liked. In the process he sold and motherless, travelling round Europe leine(though the comparison wasmade, of
110m records, had more than 60 gold and with the dancer-cousins who informally course). It was something more shifting
platinum albums, and remained at the adopted him. There was no fixed home or and slightly disturbing, like those eyes: like
summit ofnational life for58 years. school; places and people were left be- a sliveroflight-blue glass. 7