It was to salute Gilbert Bécaud's dynamism that at the end of the 1950s, an American journalist nicknamed him "
Monsieur 100,000 volts
".
He did not like that expression that stuck to his skin, and yet it corresponded to reality.
For more than four decades, he has never ceased to electrify several generations of spectators, sometimes at the rate of 300 concerts per year where everything was regulated by the note, and even by the gesture.
He explains in a TO
-blank
, "directed in 1970 by Roger Sciandra and proposed by Madelen.
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In addition to the images shot in rehearsals or during a show, there are some rare confidences of a man as talkative on the stage as he is modest in the city.
He thus admits knowing sometimes, moments of anguish, but does not however specify that on the eve of a premiere at the Olympia, he spends his day spraying his hands with "
Well-being
", a water of unscented cologne, to avoid biting your nails until they bleed.
To those who are worried, he replies, with humor, that he offers himself a pleasure that does not cost him dearly, since it is his own nails.
Read alsoHow could Gilbert Bécaud have been so forgotten?
On the other hand, he does not hide a tobacco addiction that began at 15, in the Vercors maquis where his family had taken refuge to escape the Nazis and the Gestapo. Several times he tried to quit smoking. He never succeeded. Those who, one day or another, have attended one of his recitals remember those moments when, between two songs, he went backstage to take a puff and swallow a drop of whiskey, in order to s 'clear your throat. We must not look elsewhere for the origin of a cancer of the mouth, which he managed to cure, and another of the lung, which was fatal.
Until his last days, he was convinced that he would win this battle against illness. His mother having been a hundred years old, he claimed to be able to beat this record. He even sometimes slipped in the ears of his close friends, that he had the feeling of being immortal. He finally passed away at 74. In
Point Blank
, he nevertheless wonders what he will do when he passes the 95 spring mark. Will he have had the time to see it all, to experience it all?
His record shows that he did everything to get closer to this impossible dream. Driving very fast on roads where the speed limit was not yet applicable did not prevent him, sometimes, from taking his time. When in the early 1960s, he decided to conquer the United States, he adopted the turtle strategy. He refuses important fees in France and agrees to go and perform for modest, even ridiculous, sums in cities where he is absolutely unknown. Each time, it's a triumph.
Word of mouth eventually led him to New York.
On April 22, 1966, at Philamornic Hall - a 3,000-seat hall - he received the first ovation in a long series.
He then recorded
What Now My Love
, the English version of
And now
.
Sales of the single beat the record set by Frank Sinatra with
Stranger in the Night
.
He never really bragged about it.
No doubt because, viscerally, the past did not interest him.
He wanted to be a man of the future.
This is probably why his songs from yesterday still have a bright future ahead of them.
An anthology of Gilbert Bécaud's greatest successes
