Happy couples don't have stories, but that doesn't stop them from making them up.
Louis Velle, who died last week at the age of 96, and Frédérique Hébrard, his wife for more than seven decades, wrote soap operas in the 1970s and 90s that have become legendary.
The first broadcast of
La demoiselle d'Avignon
and Le
Mari de l'Ambassadeur
was passionately followed by more than 20 million viewers!
Audiences that only sporting events can today try to match.
The charm and elegance of the actor have a lot to do with it.
For a generation of women, in the role of François Fonsalette, then in that of Pierre-Baptiste Lambert
Monsieur l'Ambassadeur
, Louis Velle became the symbol of the naturally attractive man.
To this accent of sincerity are added many others that he evokes in an interview from 1973, which Madelen invites you to see or see again, among other excerpts from his long career.
In these images shot for a regional television newscast, he recounts his passion for one of his first roles, a German captain in
The Love of the Four Colonels
, by Peter Ustinov, which he played in 1954 at the Fontaine.
He has embodied nearly fifty other characters, on stage or in
Au théâtre ce soir
.
SEE ALSO
- Louis Velle - the Eye of INA
Read alsoDeath at 96 of actor Louis Velle, one of the deans of French cinema
He entered television through the back door with a discreet appearance in 1964 in the soap opera
L'abonnement de la ligne
U.
After detours through the cinema, in particular in
The Driver's License
and
A Husband is a Husband
, thanks to the small screen, a notoriety that is miraculous has arrived.
At the end of the 1960s, after the success of a first soap opera
How Not to Marry a Billionaire
, Louis Velle and Frédérique Hébrard decided to develop another idea.
They devote more than a year to writing the screenplay and the dialogues of
La demoiselle d'Avignon.
.
They then go in search of a producer and a channel capable of shooting and broadcasting a story whose theme has not been chosen at random.
The couple believe that this modern fairy tale, divided into 20-minute episodes, could become an oasis of dreams, allowing the French to forget, for a moment, the worries of an exhausting day of work .
Read alsoDiscover a selection of Louis Velle's best pieces on Madelen
The reports of the assistants in charge of reading the scripts are then unanimous: this story will not interest anyone, after May 68, a princess story, that will not interest anyone.
Velle and Hébrard think the opposite and are not discouraged.
One afternoon, on rue d'Amsterdam, Louis Velle bumps into a friend who has an appointment with Yves Jaigu, who runs the fiction department of the ORTF's second channel.
He knows the project of
La demoiselle d'Avignon
and the difficulties, even the impossibility, of bringing it to fruition.
He offers the actor to accompany him to defend his idea.
Velle accepts and finds himself in front of Yves Jaigu who welcomes him warmly.
Louis Velle recounts his
"Demoiselle d'Avignon"
They indeed have a common family point: André Chamson, the father-in-law of Louis, succeeded, at the French Academy, to Baron Ernest Sellière, of which Jaigu was the son-in-law.
After about twenty minutes of a very friendly conversation, during which Velle develops his arguments, Jaigu, all smiles, agrees to try the adventure.
He will sign a development contract, allowing the situation to be unblocked.
He is aware of taking a risk and going against the choices of his teams, and he gives the reason: “
You didn't tell me about yourself, but about the audience for whom you wrote these episodes.
Since I have been at the head of this service, you are the first author to hold such language, to concern yourself with viewers
.
What followed was not a path of roses.
No one imagined then that Marthe Keller, on the rise in the cinema, would agree to play Princess Kristina of Kurland, Koba Lye-Lye.
Louis Velle managed to convince her.
This is how the fairy tale came true.
The first episode of
La Demoiselle d'Avignon
in 1972, with Louis Velle and Marthe Keller...
