Among all the books that come out for the fourth anniversary of his death, "Johnny Hallyday and his Guardian Angels" (Casa éditions, 208 pages, 29.95 euros) is one of the most interesting, because it gives voice to men who have shared his intimacy over three decades.
Journalist Laurent Lavige convinced his former personal secretaries, Sacha Rhoul and Jean Basselin, to recount their experience for the first time.
Sacha Rhoul, 82, had been hired in 1966 by Johnny to protect Sylvie and their newly born son David, and were the subject of death threats.
Fortunately, they were false, but this great sportsman, who was then working in the Olympia's security service, became his handyman until they fell out in 1983. “I was ready to give my hand. life for this guy, but living with him 24 hours a day, that was tough!
Jean Basselin, he met Johnny thanks to the motorbike in the 70s. Importer of Harley-Davidson, he took care of his machines, then became his handyman from June 1989 to the end of 1991.
The profiteers and the envelopes
Johnny was extremely generous with his friends, that's a heard deal.
“He was capable of slamming up to 1 million francs
(Editor's note: 150,000 euros)
in a day, to please”.
What Sacha Rhoul tells for the first time is that he distributed ticket envelopes at his request to families in need who had written to him.
"He didn't want that to be known."
/ Casa editions
He is less gentle with those he calls "the profiteers", who invited themselves to Johnny's table and always left without paying.
“Johnny's tragedy was that 99% of the people around him were only there out of interest,” he said.
Either for the money or for the glory.
The musicians, all this fauna circling around him like jackals.
When I told him, he replied:
I know all that, but it does not matter, it is the nature of people
.
Once he asked me to stop paying for everyone, but we only ate two.
So Johnny resumed as before.
He was not resentful.
I do.
"
A "seducer", who feared Sylvie Vartan
Sacha Rhoul tenderly bedroom "the big one", in particular by recounting an episode where he had brought up to his room the young woman he had just flirted with.
“Half an hour later, the girl comes knocking on my door.
Johnny, drunk, fell asleep.
And the next day, he tells me about the scorching night he spent with her.
"
He also says he took an apartment in his name in Paris to "receive his conquests".
“But he never set foot there.
He was a seducer, not a
tail
.
For me, his alleged affair with Catherine Deneuve is a legend.
At the time, anyway, I lived 24 hours a day with him and saw nothing.
Sacha Rhoul has a particular tenderness for Sylvie Vartan, the one he has known best.
“She was the one who had the most character.
She was the only woman he respected and feared at the same time, because she dominated him.
The only one who could talk to him about music at the same level.
"
His first road trip in 1974 ... a joyous galley
Much has been said about Johnny's last motorcycle road trip in the United States, but less is known about the first.
It was 1974 and Sacha Rhoul was on the journey.
“We had just seen the film
Easy Rider
and we decided to do their journey again.
But we didn't know much about the Kawasaki that we had picked up in the United States and we had misjudged the distances.
In the photos, we smile, but in fact we were freezing.
We often slept outside at night.
We even broke down in the desert.
"
Jean Basselin was on the 1990 trip, where Johnny spent a night in prison in New Mexico, and a trip in 2007. “Johnny wanted to do this
road trip
with David, but his son said no. week before, and Johnny was very disappointed.
He adored his son.
I saw him once arrive at a concert late, because he wanted to bring her presents.
"
"Johnny didn't like Claude François"
“The only guys Johnny didn't like was Claude François and Dick Rivers, because he found them inhuman with those around them,” says Sacha Rhoul.
He cites a gala shared in Gonesse with Dick Rivers, where Johnny asks to take him off stage before the end of his concert and begins by singing "Get out".
Atmosphere.
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With Claude François, it was worse.
“When Johnny was tired, he wanted to break his face.
It started with a story of women.
But above all, he didn't like her because he insulted his musicians and technicians and humiliated them in public.
He was the opposite of that.
For two years, Claude François sent his assistant, who was nicknamed the pilot fish in Parisian restaurants to be sure that Johnny was not there.
"
Two other essential books
Johnny by his last guitarist.
Musical director and ultimate guitarist of the idol of young people, Yarol Poupaud is the one who put him back on the road to rock'n'roll.
But this excellent musician should not be reduced to that.
He is a young man in his fifties with an already busy life.
In his autobiography "Electric"
(Plon, 294 pages, 20 euros)
, which will delight guitar and rock fans, we find the group that made him known, FFF, Black Minou, which he leads with his brother Melvil, we meet a babysitter named Isabelle Adjani, the duo Niagara, of which he will be guitarist during a tour.
A third of the book is obviously devoted to his six years with Johnny.
Many great moments, some tensions, including the day he almost missed a concert in Epernay after being arrested and jailed in New York for possession of cocaine, and heartbreaking farewells.
Or Yarol Poupaud, in tears, alone in front of Johnny's lifeless body, in Marnes-la-Coquette, taking his guitar and playing his favorite songs one last time.
Johnny by his fans.
Thibaut Geffrotin, a 31-year-old sports journalist, commentator on Eurosport and Téléfoot, wrote the fans' bible, “Johnny, a Star in our eyes”
(Talent Editions, 586 pages, 22.90 euros)
.
Himself a worshiper of the late rocker, he has collected no less than 160 testimonies from those who worked or vibrated with him, from the most famous to the most anonymous.
In this block of nearly 600 pages, stuffed with anecdotes and intelligently arranged by thematic chapters, we browse through the interviews of Bryan Adams, Lara Fabian, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Marc Lévy, Sandrine Bonnaire, Claude Lelouch, of such discreet people. than her hairdresser Mathieu.
But we also meet incredible admirers like Bruno, who sold his bakery to follow an entire tour, or Didier, a disabled Tourangeau who took the plane for the first time to go to his idol's grave in Saint-Barthélemy.
Thibaut Geffrotin, who made the pilgrimage four times, met Johnny's friends there who are rarely heard.
