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Top 10 Sensational Facts about Johnny Hallyday

Jean-Philippe Léo Smet was born on 15 June 1943 and died on 5 December 2017. He was better known by his stage name Johnny Hallyday. He was a French rock and roll and pop singer and actor, credited for having brought rock and roll to France.

During a career spanning 57 years, he released 79 albums. He was one of the best-selling artists in the world. He sold more than 110 million records worldwide, mainly in the French-speaking world. In the article are the top ten sensational facts about Johnny Hallyday.

1. Hallyday grew up with his aunt Hélène Mar

Johnny Hallyday was born to Léon Smet, a Belgian, and Huguette Eugénie Pierrette Clerc, a French. Léon Smet, who worked as a nightclub performer, left his wife and son a few months later after Johnny was born.

Clerc started a modelling career, which left her with little time to care for her son. This is where his aunt Hélène Mar stepped in and raised Johnny.

2. He had five diamond albums

Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type such as album, single, or music video and by nation or territory.

Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories, which are named after precious materials such as gold, platinum and diamond. Reflecting additional growth in music sales, the Diamond award was instituted in 1999 for albums or singles selling ten million units.

Apart from the five diamond albums by Johnny Hally, he also has 40 golden albums, and 22 platinum albums and earned ten Victoires de la Musique, (an annual French award ceremony where the Victoire accolade is delivered by the French Ministry of Culture to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry).

3. Performing at the Eiffel Tower in 2000 was one of Johnny’s spectacular performances

A photo of the Eiffel Tower by Benh LIEU SONG –

The Eiffel Tower is a wrought iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Â鶹APP, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. The tower has since become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world.

The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument with an entrance fee worldwide; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. Johnny performing at the structure had record-breaking ticket sales.

4. Johhny Hallyday collaborated with Charles Aznavour

Charles Aznavour photo by Mariusz Kubik –

Charles Aznavour was a French-Armenian singer, lyricist, actor and diplomat. Aznavour was known for his distinctive vibrato tenor voice which was clear and ringing in its upper reaches, with gravelly and profound low notes. Johnny couldn’t stand back from choosing such a high-quality musician to collaborate with.

In a career as a composer, singer and songwriter, spanning over 70 years, he recorded more than 1,200 songs interpreted in 9 languages. Moreover, he wrote or co-wrote more than 1,000 songs for himself and others. Aznavour is regarded as one of the greatest songwriters in the history of music and an icon of 20th-century pop culture.

5. Johnny Hallyday collaborated with Michel Berger

A photo of Michel Berger by François Alquier –

Michel Berger was a French singer and songwriter. He was a leading figure in France’s pop music scene for two decades as a singer and a songwriter for such artists as his wife France Gall, Françoise Hardy and Johnny Hallyday.

6. JohnnyHallyday collaborated with Jean-Jacques Goldman

Jean Jacques Goldman photo by Goldman –

Jean-Jacques Goldman is a French singer-songwriter and music, record producer. He is hugely popular in the French-speaking world. Since the death of Johnny Hallyday in 2017 he has been the highest-grossing living French pop-rock act.

Born in Â鶹APP and active in the music scene since 1975, he had a highly successful solo career in the 1980s, and was part of the trio Fredericks Goldman Jones, releasing another string of hits in the 1990s.

7. He was a symbol of the Trente Glorieuses

Les Trente Glorieuses ‘The Glorious Thirty’ was thirty years of economic growth in France between 1945 and 1975, following the end of the Second World War. The term is derived from Les Trois Glorieuses (‘The Glorious Three’), the three days of revolution on 27–29 July 1830 in France.

The name was first used by the French demographer Jean Fourastié, who coined the term in 1979 with the publication of his book Les Trente Glorieuses, ou la révolution invisible de 1946 à 1975 ‘The Glorious Thirty, or the Invisible Revolution from 1946 to 1975’. Johnny became a symbol of the Trente Glorieuses when he emerged in 1960.

8. Hallyday was married five times

His first marriage was to French singer Sylvie Vartan, lasting fifteen years from 1965 to 1980. Their son David was born in 1966. His second marriage to Babeth Étienne was his shortest, lasting 65 days.

Hallyday had a four-year relationship with French actress Nathalie Baye. Their daughter Laura was born in 1983. His third and fourth marriages were to the same woman, Adeline Blondieau, from 1990 to 1992, and from 1994 to 1995.

Officiated by Nicolas Sarkozy, his fifth and final marriage was to Læticia Boudou from 1996 until his death. The couple adopted two girls from Vietnam: Jade Odette Désirée, born on 3 August 2004, in November 2004, and Joy in 2008.

9. Hallyday resided in Los Angeles to avoid being overtaxed by the French government

A photo of Johny Hallyday by Michaël Bemelmans –

Hallyday lived in Los Angeles, United States. He owned a chalet in the Swiss town of Gstaad, from 2006 to 2015 to avoid the high tax rate imposed by the French government. Hallyday said that he would have moved his residency back to France if it changed its tax laws.

In January 2014, Hallyday said that his current residence was in the United States after an investigation by a Swiss journalist showed that Hallyday did not spend enough time in Gstaad to qualify as a resident.

10. Hallyday died of lung cancer in 2017

In July 2009, Hallyday was diagnosed with colon cancer,[38] and underwent surgery. On 26 November 2009, Hallyday underwent surgery in Â鶹APP to repair a herniated disc. He suffered complications and was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Doctors announced that they had put Hallyday into a medically-induced coma so they could repair lesions that had formed as a result of the surgery, and to relieve his pain.

Hallyday died of lung cancer at 10:10 pm on 5 December 2017 in Marnes-la-Coquette, near Â鶹APP, at the age of 74. The type of cancer that he succumbed to, is not the one he died of in 2017. Hallyday seemed to be prone to various kinds of cancers.