The one who caused a sensation in the early 1960s with the song All the boys and girls my age had a wonderful and long career that spanned nearly 60 years. With around thirty albums to her credit, Françoise Hardy knew how to cross borders with her melancholic titles that she particularly liked. Unfortunately, the French singer, now 79 years old, had to stop singing due to a second cancer which poisoned her life to the point of requesting medical assistance in dying. That’s what a new biography reveals.
A lover of music since a very young age, Françoise Hardy, who was described, from her first appearances, as beautiful and elegant, quickly stood out. In 1962, at just 18 years old, she experienced international success with her 45 rpm All the boys and girls my age, which sold more than a million copies. She quickly became a headline-grabbing star. Paris Match.
Photo provided by Casa Éditions
It is in a magnificent large-format, abundantly illustrated book, signed Christian Eudeline, that we discover the life of the singer-songwriter. Born in 1944, she grew up in a modest two-room Parisian apartment with her sister and her single mother. She does not see her father, who often forgets to pay child support even though he comes from a wealthy family.
Young Françoise is traumatized by her maternal grandmother with whom she spends her weekends and who inflicts physical mistreatment on her. Sad and lonely, she takes refuge in books and the music she listens to on the radio. She did not hesitate to buy records with her pocket money and received a guitar at 16 as a gift for the success of her studies. She quickly found a way to get auditioned and signed her first contract at 17 with Vogue Records.
A prolific career
Rather discreet by nature, the muse of the yéyés put an end to the idea of performing on tour. She prefers to record albums in the studio and appears on TV shows, which does not prevent her from winning awards and selling her records throughout France, Quebec and elsewhere in the world.
Françoise Hardy chooses nostalgic songs which reflect her anxieties and her anxiety about life in general, but also about romantic relationships. She became a fashion icon for her clothing choices and even overshadowed Brigitte Bardot.
The singer also acts in French films and writes books, including an autobiography, essays, novels and books on astrology. She writes in particular on the fight against illness, society and old age.
Blues
“I am in a truly nightmarish state of suffering most of the time,” said, on more than one occasion, the singer suffering from laryngeal cancer, going so far as to call on the French president in 2021 to obtain the right to euthanasia, which she has not yet obtained.
“From a certain point when there is too much suffering and there is no hope, the suffering must be reduced,” she confided.
This is because her radiotherapy treatments made her deaf in one ear in addition to burning her salivary glands, preventing her from eating on her own. With the help of a caregiver, it took her several hours to eat, which caused her to lose a lot of weight.
“The 45 radiotherapies that were sent to me from left to right from the bottom of my head and the other 10 from top to bottom destroyed what allows me to irrigate my mouth, throat, nose, ears and eyes,” said the singer who also experiences respiratory distress.
Let us remember that Françoise Hardy’s fight against illness does not go back to yesterday. She first fought against a first cancer of the lymphatic system, forcing her to undergo increasingly heavy treatments.
Françoise Hardy, weakened, lives alone and no longer goes out, having lost the taste for living. She is very close to her son Thomas Dutronc, who also became a singer and musician. He who, as an adult, collaborated with her in her career became her pride and her reason for living. She remained close to her former husband Jacques Dutronc, the father of her son.
Merits
Françoise Hardy has won several awards over the years.
In March 2005, his album So many beautiful things became certified gold and she was named female performing artist of the year at the 20th Victoires de la Musique. In 2006, she received the Grande Médaille de la chanson française, awarded by the Académie française. In 1982, she won the Diamant prize for French song for the album Someone who leaves. She is included in the list of Rolling Stone as the best French singer of all time. As for the author, Christian Eudeline is a journalist and author of several biographies, including those on Vanessa Paradis, Johnny Hallyday, Indochine and U2.
2023-09-14 19:47:26
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