“Office banned at Covid-19.
“The brightly colored sign flashes among other gadgets in Jean-Luc Azoulay's lair in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), near the Stade de France.
AB Productions' A, from the Dorothée years and "Hélène et les Boys", this weekend celebrates the 10th anniversary of "Mysteries of Love", to be seen on TMC at 6:45 pm.
A soap opera of which he continues, at 73, to write each episode, toasting cigarette after cigarette.
"It chases the Covid", he slices, he who tests himself constantly while waiting to be able to be vaccinated.
What still drives him to this daily labor of the bluette?
“I am the memory of it all.
No one else would navigate it.
"It is that we have exceeded the 1200 episodes since" Hélène et les boys "in 1992, followed by" the Holidays of love "," the Miracle of love "," the Mysteries of love " , always with the same actors, now in their fifties, in the roles of Hélène, Nicolas or Cri-Cri d'amore.
The plots change, not the hearts: “We are between 15 and 18 years old all our life”, sweeps Azoulay.
Another 700,000 followers of Hélène's gang
For the photo, he brought an ultra-colorful jacket, with improbable and tangy patterns.
“She makes you fat.
Take it off, Jean-Luc, ”pleads his press officer.
No way.
"So much the better, that's a big producer," laughs the person concerned.
I bought it on the Internet.
Everyone insults me when I wear it.
"
The production's Lucky Luke doesn't take himself seriously.
No time to look back on his work, even if the word can make you smile.
Criticism slips like water on the colorful feathers of the ugly duckling of French fiction: "I am told so much that I am out of date, that I am useless, that it amuses me", says Azoulay, recalling his mattress. 700,000 followers of the “Mysteries” (2 million with replay and rebroadcast).
“The mysteries of love” have been broadcast on TMC since February 12, 2011. JLA PR / Jean-Philippe Baltel
Among the criticisms addressed, the lack of diversity.
“This is wrong,” he retorts.
At the moment, Hélène is in love with Doctor Blake, who is black.
I am totally anti-racist.
But putting the black on duty or the Arab on duty is racism.
Me, I think first of the characters without asking myself what origin they are, then I do a casting.
"
Him, it is Sylvie Vartan who spotted him.
He was 18 years old, began studying medicine and chaired the singer's fan club during these “Hello friends” years.
“He surprised everyone with his career,” she says.
He made no noise, never stepped forward, but he had plenty of ideas.
Jean-Luc quickly became my secretary, press officer, then manager and organizer.
It is the quiet force, bubbling within.
"
One episode a day
The young man travels with Sylvie and Johnny.
One of his assistants tells us without laughing about a surprise visit from the Taulier, a long time later, to his offices as a mogul of the pre-teen series: “He said to him:
Ah, Jean-Luc, you did well.
"
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It was during a tour in the United States with Vartan that the future author of “First Kisses” discovered the sitcoms: “They did not exist in France.
The first was
Maguy
, an adaptation of
Maud
, an American production.
But there was one episode a week.
We did one a day.
It was a crazy idea.
Everyone told us that we couldn't do it.
It was a necessity, because we had the
Club Dorothée
to fill, and I needed French programs, with quotas.
Then, the series went so well that they left the
Club
to be broadcast in access prime time.
"
In January 2008 with Sylvie Vartan, of which he chaired the fan club.
RINDOFF-GUIREC / BESTIMAGE
Go fast.
This son of a Jewish family grew up in Sétif, Algeria, on high plateaus that were often snow-covered, "without TV or distraction", and devoured a novel a day, from the Countess of Ségur to Jules Verne via Balzac and Zola.
Its models are the soap operas who delivered the newspapers "without knowing what they would write the next day".
Like him.
At the end of the Algerian war, the teenager arrived in Paris with his parents on July 1, 1962, "like everyone else", he smiles.
Not a trauma: “In winter, it snowed in Paris as in Sétif.
He continues to live in books more than reality.
And goes straight through the fairy tale box: “With Sylvie, I got to know luxury hotels, big restaurants, tours in Japan where I discovered manga and electronics.
I am not at all interested in money because I have always lived in luxury.
And I learned a lot of trades at a very young age, in contact with Guy Lux or the Carpentiers.
"
With Dorothée, the factory is running at full speed
His lifelong musician, Gérard Salesses - Azoulay also wrote 3,000 songs - recounts their flight: “One day in 1976, Jean-Luc said to me: I'm going to introduce you to a friend, Claude Berda
(Editor's note: the B of AB Productions)
.
We're setting up a production company, do you want to be our musician?
It was the disco wave.
He had found Nadine Expert, a sort of French Blondie, but it all started when Dorothée entered her office.
From there, it was the big factory.
"
With the latter, which he spotted as an announcer, Azoulay is persuasive: “He was quite devious, remembers Dorothée.
I didn't want to sing.
We did the musical tale
Land of Songs
, and at the end he said to me:
You see, you sing well.
Jean-Luc, he looks like a 4 year old kid.
He always got what he wanted and laughed like a little man.
He asks for a lot but gives a lot.
"The star of the kids of the 1980s liked less the recent outing of his mentor who announced his big comeback:" That's what sir said ... I was invaded by phone calls, but I didn't see anything coming. .
He had said it like that.
Sometimes fine-tuning wouldn't be a bad thing… ”
Jean-Luc Azoulay, Dorothée and Claude Berda in June 1993. SIPA
Finishing, not his type.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the “factory” was in full swing.
“Récré A2” then “Le Club Dorothée” on TF 1, and prime times with Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis.
“There was a place to take.
We had to deliver programs without stopping ”, recalls Edith and Souad,“ Tic et Tac ”, assistants and“ tapers ”- that's their word - on the computer for Jean-Luc Azoulay for thirty years, first readers of his scenarios it dictates.
In the JLA offices, they tell the ogre on a daily basis: “Even on tour, you had to type, type, type.
So many episodes to provide.
One day, I was so tired that I spilled a coffee on the keyboard on purpose.
Because of that, I had to carry two computers afterwards, just in case, ”recalls Edith.
“We lived in autarky, adds Souad.
I stayed late, I had no children yet.
Several evenings a week, Jean-Luc Azoulay did all the offices to pick up the last employees and invite them to the restaurant.
"
Couples make and break up in the AB galaxy then, after an amicable separation in 1999 with Claude Berda, remained "a close friend" but who wanted to give up production to concentrate on his satellite package, the birth of JLA Group.
The boss marries Isabelle Bouysse, one of the actresses of his troupe, of whom he has two children, a son studying in Boston and a daughter who passes the baccalaureate, and could one day take over dad's business.
"He has been less present since he has a family," points out Souad.
“I can't find…”, corrects Edith.
A hard worker without limits: “He invited me once to his holiday home in Saint-Martin.
But we haven't seen the sea too much, ”says Gérard Sallesses.
Azoulay employs two secretaries on the island of the Antilles to type in his scripts during his holidays: “Yva and Marie-Pierre, put their name, it will make them happy.
"
"He has his dolls and he plays"
The factory sometimes offers a job for life.
"We will end up fighting with walkers and turning the nursing home of love", jokes Patrick Puydebat, Nicolas d'Hélène, who will celebrate his 30 years of sitcom next year: "Jean-Luc has gone from daddy to buddy.
He picked me up several times with a teaspoon.
"Hélène Rollès, 54, has an amused eye on the patriarch:" I imagine him with her doll Hélène, her doll Nicolas.
He has his dolls and he's playing.
He's a big kid.
"
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The same word comes up, but more acid, in another band of actors of the Azoulay galaxy, that of a series which did not work, "the Group".
“The actors are his toys.
He loves to pull the strings.
All is not so rosy.
There is a very clan side around him, ”says one of them.
Jérémy Michalak, who started in this series before joining the band in Ruquier, witnessed the hardships of many old-timers: “It's very hard to work elsewhere because you are so marked.
Me, fortunately the series did not work, otherwise I would still be there!
And some of the actors of the time are breaking the bank.
"
Hélène Rollès, she accompanied Emmanuel Macron to China in 2019, at the request of President Xi Jinping, a fan.
The poster of the meeting sits in the office, like those of the other stars in his life.
And his gadgets: the producer kept in a display case a collection of his old laptops, from his first phone, the Radiocom 2000 he had in his car.
A large poster also of his last protege, Elsa Esnoult, 32 years old, on the bill of “Mysteries of love”, but also of “Camping paradis” - JLA also produces fictions for TF 1 and France Télévisions - not to mention of his albums and tours, interrupted by the epidemic.
“He's my spiritual father.
He had been looking for a singer for a very long time, ”explains the Club's new princess.
Jean-Luc Azoulay takes down from his office wall a photo of Hélène Rollès surrounded by Xi JinPing and Emmanuel Macron.
LP / Philippe Lavieille
"I am a producer in perpetual quest", confirms the septuagenarian, who would like to convince the big chains to return to the sitcom: "The televisions still have their say vis-a-vis the platforms.
There is no longer any joint listening between parents and children.
The Dorothée Club, that was it.
Reality TV is not unifying.
It's Netflix that will put sitcoms back in fashion, ”he says.
In the meantime, he continues to crackle the keyboards of his assistants.
On his desk, next to the two computers, two large speakers arouse our curiosity.
It turns up the sound to show us their acoustic quality.
This is from Elsa Esnoult: "When the sun goes down, never to rise again ... When the end of time comes, I will write your name ..." The end of time is not for tomorrow on the planet JLA .
Jean-Luc Azoulay in 8 dates
September 23, 1947:
birth in Sétif in Algeria.
1965:
directs Sylvie Vartan's fan club.
1977:
creation of AB Productions with Claude Berda.
1980-1997:
musicals with Dorothée, “Récré A2” then “Club Dorothée”.
1987:
first AB series, “No mercy for croissants”, with Dorothée, Jacky, Ariane, Corbier and Patrick Simpson-Jones.
1999:
creation of JLA Groupe.
2007:
birth of its IDF1 channel.
2011:
start of the “Mysteries of Love” on TMC, which celebrated their 10th anniversary on February 12th.
