Jean-Philippe Léo Smet (15 June 1943 – 5 December 2017), better known by his stage name of "Johnny Hallyday" and often shortened to "Johnny", was a French singer and actor.
He was an icon in the French-speaking world since the beginning of his career in The '60s, considered by many to have been the closest to a French answer to Elvis Presley. Johnny has completed 100 tours, had 18 platinum albums, and sold more than 110 million records. Although he announced his retirement from performing on 3 December 2007, saying that he would retire in 2009, he emerged from retirement in March 2012 to announce North American engagements Los Angeles on April 24 and in New York City on October 7, then gave further performances up until his year of death.
He was married for 15 years to popular Bulgarian-French singer Sylvie Vartan. They formed the "golden couple" of the sixties and seventies in Francophone Europe.
Influenced by Elvis Presley and the 1950s Rock & Roll revolution, Hallyday became famous in the 1960s for singing rock and roll in French. His debut single, Laisse les filles was released in March 1960. His first album, Hello Johnny, was released in 1960. In 1961 his cover of Let's Twist Again sold over one million copies. It became his first gold disc. It topped almost every European chart with the notorious exception of the British.
He appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show with American singing star Connie Francis in a show that was taped at the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Paris. He also staged many appearances in the Paris Olympia, which became his favored performing arena.
An interesting piece of trivia is that the Jimi Hendrix Experience opened for Johnny Hallyday in Évreux on 13 October 1966. Black and white footage, also from October 1966, exists of Hallyday partying with Hendrix, his manager Chas Chandler and others.
At the end of the 1960s, Hallyday made a string of albums with Mick Jones and Tommy Brown as musical directors, and Big Jim Sullivan, Bobby Graham and Jimmy Page as session musicians. These are Jeune Homme, Rivière... Ouvre ton Lit (aka Je suis né dans la rue) and Vie. On Je suis né dans la rue, Hallyday also hired both Peter Frampton and the Small Faces. Amongst their contributions are the songs Amen (Bang Bang), Reclamation (News Report) and Regarde Pour Moi (What You Will) which are variations of Small Faces and Humble Pie tracks. (Humble Pie being Frampton's band). Often forgotten is Hallyday's critically acclaimed non-LP single and EP track Que Je T'aime from the same sessions. By 1969 alone, his sales of records exceeded twelve million.
Hallyday arguably become a better and more rounded performer in his more mature years. One of his concerts, 100% Johnny: Live à la Tour Eiffel in 2000, attracted an audience of 500,000 in Paris, and 9.5 million television viewers (the show was broadcast live on French TV). In December 2005, Hallyday had his third number-one single in France, Mon Plus Beau Noël (after Tous ensemble and Marie), dedicated to his adopted daughter Jade. Shortly before announcing his retirement from touring, he released a blues-flavored album, Le Cœur d'un homme, on 12 November 2007. The album hit #1 in both France and French-speaking Belgium.
In addition to the lead single Always, Le Cœur d'un homme features T'aimer si mal, a duet with bluesman Taj Mahal and I Am the Blues, an English-language song written for Hallyday by U2 frontman Bono. His next album, Ça ne finira jamais, released in 2008, another #1 on the French album chart, and its lead single, "Ça n'finira jamai, also reached #1. Hallyday's most recent album, also a #1 hit in France, is Tour 66: Stade de France 2009, a live set recorded at Stade de France during his farewell tour. Hallyday remains largely unknown outside of France, thus earning the nickname "the biggest rock star you've never heard of" in English-speaking countries. He was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur in 1997.
French movie producers Michèle and Laurent Pétin introduced Johnny Hallyday to Hong Kong film director Johnny To. Hallyday was then cast as the main role of To's Vengeance after meeting with the director in early 2008. The shooting began in Hong Kong in November 2008 and concluded in February 2009.
In November 2005, Hallyday started a procedure to obtain Belgian citizenship, but his request was turned down in 2006 because he failed to fulfill the residence requirements. He maintained a second home in Los Angeles, where he has been spending increasing amounts of time in recent years, enjoying his relative anonymity in the U.S. One of his favorite leisure activities is riding his Harley-Davidson on long trips through the California desert, staying in small motels along the way. In July 2009, Hallyday was diagnosed with colon cancer, for which he was operated on. On 26 November 2009, Hallyday underwent surgery in Paris to repair a herniated disc. He suffered complications and was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He recovered fully.
He passed away from lung cancer on December 6, 2017. The last of his concerts happened on July 5, 2017 during the tour of "Les Vieilles Canailles", a group of legends of 1960s French rock & roll with the addition of his friends Eddy Mitchell and Jacques Dutronc. They were gathered for the first time in 2014.
Discography:
Albums
Studio albums
- Hello Johnny (1960, Vogue)
- Nous les Gars, Nous les Filles (1961, Vogue)
- Tête à Tête avec Johnny (1961, Vogue)
- Salut les Copains! (1961, Philips)
- Johnny Hallyday sings America's Rockin' Hits (1962, Philips)
- Les Bras en Croix (1963, Philips)
- Les Rocks les Plus Terribles (1964, Philips)
- Halleluyah (1965, Philips)
- Johnny Chante Hallyday (1965, Philips)
- La Génération Perdue (1966, Philips)
- Johnny 67 (1967, Philips)
- Jeune Homme (1968, Philips)
- Rêve et Amour (1968, Philips)
- Rivière... Ouvre ton Lit (aka Je suis né dans la rue) (1969, Philips)
- Vie (1970, Philips)
- Flagrant Délit (1971, Philips)
- Pleins Feux Sur... (1971, Philips)
- Country-Folk-Rock (1972, Philips)
- Insolitudes (1973, Philips)
- Je t'Aime, Je t'Aime, Je t'Aime (1974, Philips)
- Rock'n Slow (1974, Philips)
- Rock à Memphis (1975, Philips)
- La Terre Promise (1975, Philips)
- Derrière l'Amour (1976, Philips)
- Hamlet (1976, Philips)
- C'est la Vie (1977, Philips)
- Solitudes à Deux (1978, Philips)
- Hollywood (1979, Philips)
- À Partir de Maintenant... (1980, Philips)
- En Pièces Détachées (1981, Philips)
- Pas Facile (1981, Philips)
- Quelque Part un Aigle (1982, Philips)
- La Peur (1982, Philips)
- Entre Violence et Violon (1983, Philips)
- Hallyday 84: Nashville en Direct (1984, Philips)
- En V.O. (1984, Philips)
- Rock'n'Roll Attitude (1985, Philips)
- Gang (1986, Philips)
- Cadillac (1989, Philips)
- Ça ne change pas un homme (1991, Philips)
- Rough Town (1994, Philips)
- Lorada (1995, Philips)
- Ce que je sais (1998, Philips)
- Sang pour sang (1999, Philips)
- À la vie, à la mort ! (2002, Mercury)
- Ma Vérité (2005, Mercury)
- Le Cœur d'un homme (2007, Warner Music France)
- Ça ne finira jamais (2008, Warner Music France)
- Jamais seul (2011, Warner Music France)
Live albums
- Johnny et Ses Fans au Festival de Rock'n'Roll (1961, Vogue)
- À l'Olympia (1962, Philips)
- Olympia 64 (1964, Philips)
- Olympia 67 (1967, Philips)
- Au Palais des Sports (1967, Philips)
- Que Je t'Aime (1969, Philips)
- Live at the Palais des Sports (1971, Philips)
- Palais des Sports (1976, Philips)
- Pavillon de Paris (1979, Philips)
- Live (1981, Universal Music)
- Palais des Sports 1982 (1982, Universal Music)
- Au Zénith (1984, Universal Music)
- À Bercy (1987, Universal Music)
- Dans la Chaleur de Bercy (1990, Universal Music)
- Bercy 92 (1992, Universal Music)
- Parc des Princes (1993, Universal Music)
- À La Cigale (1994, Universal Music)
- Lorada Tour (1995, Universal Music)
- Destination Vegas (1996, Universal Music)
- Johnny Allume le Feu: Stade de France 98 (1998, Universal Music)
- 100% Johnny: Live à La Tour Eiffel (2000, Universal Music)
- Olympia 2000 (2000, Universal Music)
- Parc des Princes 2003 (2003, Universal Music)
- Flashback Tour Live (2006, Warner Music)
- La Cigale (2007, Warner Music)
- Tour 66: Stade de France 2009 (2009, Warner Music)
Films:
- Cherchez l'idole (1963) as himself
- Le Spécialiste (1969) as Hud / Brad
- L'aventure, c'est l'aventure (1974) as himself
- L'Animal (1974) as The Male Star
- The Case of the Missing Bottle (1983) as Monsieur Waitor
- Détective (1985) directed by Jean-Luc Godard
- Terminus (1987) as Stump
- The Iron Triangle (1989) as Jacques
- Why Not Me? (1999) as José
- Love Me (2000) as Lennox
- L'homme du train (The Man on the Train a.k.a. Man on the Train in the US) (2002) as Milan
- Crime Spree (2003) as Marcel Burot
- Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse (2004) as L'ermite borgne
- Quartier V.I.P. (2005) as Alex
- Jean-Philippe (2006) as Jean-Philippe
- Vengeance (2009) as Francis Costello
- The Pink Panther 2 (2009) as Laurence Millikin
- Rock'n Roll (2017) as himself
Tropes associated with Johnny Hallyday
- Broken Record: "Je t'attends" penned by Jean Jacques Goldman:Je t'attends, je t'attends, je t'attends, je t'attends,
Je t'attends, je t'attends, je t'attends, je t'attends,
Tout le temps, tout le temps, tout le temps, chaque instant,
Je t'attends, je t'attends, je t'attends
Depuis si longtemps.(I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting for you, all the time, all the time, all the time, each moment, I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting for you, for such a long long time!) - Fiery Sensuality: "Allumer le feu" ("Light the fire") uses this as its central metaphor. It also, a tad confusingly, taps into A Storm Is Coming in its first verse.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Hallyday always performs in leather jacket.
- Mistaken Nationality: He is often named a Belgian, though he has always held the French nationality. His parents were Belgians.
- The Power of Love: Que je t' aime.
- One-Woman Song: Oh ma Jolie Sarah.
- Pep-Talk Song: Ma Gueule about a young man complaining how everyone looks at him and who wants to beat everyone up with the question: What's wrong with my face?
- Shout-Out: Oh ma Jolie Sarah uses the refrain tout passe, tout lasse et tout casse, which refers to some poems by Guillaume Apollinaire.
- Verbal Tic: His Les Guignols de l'Info puppet has cemented the idea that Hallyday used the words Ah que at the start of all his sentences. It certainly turns up in a lot of his songs.
