Sheila, Petula Clark, Karen Cheryl but especially the announcer Denise Fabre, Chantal Gallia pastiche them all with a humor that belonged only to her.
The impersonator, star of the 90s, died on Sunday July 10 at the age of 65.
Her family announced the sad news, stating that she succumbed to
"a brutal stroke"
.
To discover
SERVICE: Book your comedy shows on Le Figaro Billetterie
It is certainly no coincidence, her stage name Gallia, resembled like two drops of water the avant-garde film Galia by Georges Lautner with Mireille Darc in the role of the liberated heroine and Venantino Venantini in that of the Roman male too sure of himself.
Throughout her career, without seeming to touch it, Chantal Gallia will impose a new form of humor on French television, which will make her glory for a few years.
Read alsoMireille Darc, the muse of the band at Lautner
The future imitator was born Chantal Halimi in Constantine, Algeria, on December 8, 1956. The French song boom of the late 1960s and early 1960s provided her with an inexhaustible source of inspiration.
Imitation is fashionable because Thierry Le Luron caricatured Jacques Chaban-Delmas with rare talent.
For Chantal, now Gallia, the road is marked out.
She will imitate the female stars of the time.
Their names are: Dalida, France Gall, Véronique Sanson, Brigitte Bardot, Joëlle Morgensen, Nana Mouskouri, etc.
The little touch of the imitator consists in accentuating the faults of the imitated.
The lisp and the slips of the too laughing Denise Fabre will thus make the honey of the comedian.
Capable of blending into the personality of female stars, Chantal Gallia also tackles male imitations.
François Mitterrand, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and the inevitable Georges Marchais, secretary general of the French Communist Party, will be among his favorite prey.
A “holy darling” of imitation
Become fashionable, Chantal Gallia will become persona grata of a host of television and radio programs.
We can mention: "The Academy of the Nine", "Champs-Élysées", The "Number" of Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier.
France 2 will give him the possibility of animating "Gallia d'la joie" in 1989 and Europe 1 will grant him a beautiful comma entitled "Champagne Gallia!".
In the 90s, Thierry Sforza wrote shows for her like
J'annonce, j'abat
and
Non mais je rêve
that she would play at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in 1992 and then at the Théâtre Michel in 1993.
Her admirers will remember that she had performed in 1978 under the direction of Nicole de Buron, the adapter and author of Les
Saintes Chéries
.
And today, with the premature disappearance of Chantal Gallia, it is a bit of the beloved host of the 70s and 80s who has just left us.
Chantal Gallia imitates Denise Fabre in 1977