re: Endless Sleep - The Obituary Thread

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Johnny Hallyday, the French answer to Elvis Presley, who kept audiences enthralled for nearly 60 years with his Gallic interpretations of American rock ’n’ roll and his turbulent offstage life, has died. He was 74.

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The 1957 Presley film “Loving You” changed French culture forever when it inspired the 14-year-old Jean-Philippe Smet to pick up a guitar, twist his lips into a sneer and swivel his hips. As Johnny Hallyday, he gave French audiences a bad case of rock fever, touching off riots wherever he appeared singing hits like “Tutti Frutti,” “Blue Suede Shoes” and “C’est le Mashed Potatoes.”

Although he was little known outside the French-speaking world, Mr. Hallyday sold more than 100 million records, acted in more than 30 films and appeared on the cover of the big-circulation magazine Paris Match dozens of times. His career endured so long that when he released an album in 2008 called “Ça Ne Finira Jamais” (“It Will Never End”), the title sounded like a simple statement of fact.

That album and its title song both reached No. 1 on the French charts.

Mr. Hallyday gave his fans more than recycled Elvis. His hard drinking, car crashes, wild partying and tempestuous love life made him a permanent headline in the French popular press. Readers breathlessly followed his on-again, off-again marriage to the glamorous singer and actress Sylvie Vartan, a roller-coaster relationship that led Mr. Hallyday to attempt suicide twice.

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Always current with the latest developments in Anglo-American rock, he made it a point to work with top talent outside France. Early in his career he recorded in Nashville with the vocal group the Jordanaires, who backed Presley on many records. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was his opening act in 1966, and he later brought the British guitarists Jimmy Page and Peter Frampton to France for recording sessions.

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