Claude François

Alongside Johnny Hallyday, Claude François ranked among the leading figures of French rock and roll during the early-1960s “yé-yé” era. Whereas Hallyday also rose through French-language reworkings of English-language rock and folk numbers, François relied far less on songs composed expressly for him. His meticulously groomed hairstyle and sparkling sequined outfits contributed equally to his fame, elevating him to major teen-idol status among fans who nicknamed him “Clo-Clo.” The four backup dancers known as the Clodettes wore even flashier attire—some of which François himself designed—lending his performances a distinctive kitsch quality that remained a visual trademark throughout his career. Fittingly, the performer who first recorded the track later adapted as “My Way” pursued an extravagant celebrity existence marked by successive publicized romances and a reputation for being notoriously temperamental. Although his popularity never waned, a streak of personal misfortunes throughout the 1970s ended abruptly when, at age 39, he suffered a fatal electric shock while standing in a bathtub to replace a light bulb.

Claude Marie Antoine François entered the world on February 1, 1939, in Ismailia, Egypt, where his father, born in France, served as a shipping traffic controller along the Suez Canal. His mother, born in Italy, fostered his musical interests by arranging violin and piano instruction, yet the youngster gravitated instead toward drums. Following Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, the family returned to France and established themselves in Monte Carlo. Soon afterward his father became gravely ill, obliging François to take daytime employment at a bank while performing evenings as a drummer with regional orchestras in hotels and nightclubs. He made his professional bow alongside Louis Frozio in 1957, despite his father’s strong protests. Around 1959 he began singing as well and quickly won over vacation crowds along the French Riviera; in 1961 he and his first wife relocated to Paris.

François secured work with Les Gamblers yet soon pursued an independent path, aiming to capitalize on the burgeoning rock-and-roll enthusiasm among Parisian youth. Still in 1961 he signed with Philips and released his first single, “Nabout Twist,” under the pseudonym Koko, but the record failed to register. His follow-up, the Everly Brothers adaptation retitled “Belles, Belles, Belles,” became a million-selling triumph in 1962. Embraced as a teen idol by the French press and the program Salut Les Copains, he tallied additional successes the next year with “Marche Tout Droit,” “Pauvre Petite Fille Riche,” “Dis-Lui,” and the late-1963 number-one hit “Si J’Avais un Marteau,” a French rendering of “If I Had a Hammer.” Now firmly established, François headlined a national tour of France in 1964 that concluded with a performance at the Olympia theater in Paris.

Throughout the mid-1960s he maintained an intense recording schedule, issuing single after single built largely on adaptations. The addition of the Clodettes to his stage presentation in 1966 introduced a fresh dimension to his live shows and supported another triumphant tour. Long separated from his first wife, he conducted a brief, widely publicized liaison with singer France Gall in 1967. In the wake of that relationship’s end he co-wrote and cut “Comme d’Habitude,” the melody Paul Anka would later transform into the English-language standard “My Way.” François launched his own Flèche label in 1968, the year he welcomed the first of two children with a subsequent partner.

He sustained strong concert and recording activity for several more years until collapsing onstage during a 1971 Marseille engagement. After a brief recovery period in the Canary Islands he returned to France only to sustain multiple fractures in a severe automobile accident. In 1972 he encountered songwriter Patrick Juvet, whose composition “Le Lundi au Soleil” became a major success; however, fresh setbacks arrived when tax authorities determined François owed more than two million francs in arrears. Further hits arrived in 1973, most notably “Ça S’en Va et Ça Revient,” yet misfortune persisted when the windmill at his rural estate burned and a spectator accidentally head-butted him during another Marseille concert.

A major 1974 success, “Le Téléphone Pleure,” reached English-speaking listeners the following year as “Tears on the Telephone” and supplied his initial United Kingdom chart entry. While promoting the record in Britain in 1975 he narrowly escaped an IRA bombing. By then he had alleviated some financial pressures through ownership of two magazines—one aimed at teenagers, the other featuring adult photography—and a modeling agency. In 1977 he recast himself as a disco artist with the enduring hits “Alexandrie, Alexandra” and “Magnolias Forever,” both of which benefited from the Clodettes’ choreographed routines. These proved to be his final releases. On March 11, 1978, shortly after taping a British television special, François was bathing in his Paris apartment when he attempted to change an overhead bulb while still standing in water, resulting in his electrocution. French audiences mourned his passing deeply and have continued to cherish much of his later catalog.