Johnny Hallyday

Johnny Hallyday was a French rock and roll and pop singer and actor, credited with having brought rock and roll to France. He started his career in the late 1950s, inspired by Elvis Presley and American rock music. He soon became a teen idol with a quiff who introduced US-style rock and roll to France in the 1960s. He was musically eclectic, veering from French ballads to blues, and from country and western to prog rock. He was also known for his strong voice and his spectacular shows, sometimes arriving by entering a stadium through the crowd or by jumping from a helicopter above the Stade de France. He collaborated with many famous French artists and musicians, such as Charles Aznavour, Michel Berger and Jean-Jacques Goldman. He was hugely popular in France, where he was referred to as simply "Johnny" and seen as a national monument and a part of the French cultural legacy. He was a symbol of the Trente Glorieuses when he emerged in 1960 and a familiar figure to four generations. More than 2,500 magazine covers and 190 books were dedicated to him during his lifetime, making him one of the people most widely covered by the media in France. His death from cancer in 2017 was followed by a "popular tribute" during which a million people attended the procession and 15 million others watched the ceremony on TV. He remained relatively unknown in the English-speaking world, where he was dubbed "the biggest rock star you've never heard of" and introduced as the French version of Elvis Presley.