Dalida is at the heart of the program “Le Grand Échiquier”, on France 2. The opportunity to return to a major artist, but also a woman struck by an endless curse with men and success …
If Dalida could still speak and sing … This Tuesday, March 18, 2025, The great chessboard Devotes an entire evening to the singer, on France 2. It is within the framework of the Royal Opera of Versailles that Claire Chazal and André Manoukian will present this program returning to the extraordinary course of the Franco-Italian Diva, born in Egypt. Over the show, presenters and guests will retrace the artist’s intense and tumultuous life. A Grand Echiquier which will also give the opportunity to relive the greatest successes of Dalida.
Born January 17, 1933, in Cairo, arrived at 20 years old in Paris, alone, on Christmas Eve 1954, Dalida will have had a career as dazzling as her life herself, marked by complex and often destructive relationships with men, terrible dramas, up to suicide, at the top of her popularity. The singer decided to end her days on May 3, 1987, at the age of 54.
Lucien Morisse, Luigi Tenco, Lucio: two suicides and a traumatic abortion
Married to her manager Lucien Morisse on April 8, 1961, Dalida will quickly suffocate in this cleaning based on work, success and glitter. Two months after this union, she meets a painter, Jean Sobieski, falls madly in love, and leaves her husband. Then in 1966, the RCA record company presented him a young composer author, Luigi Tenco. The emerging passion between the two artists will be stopped by the suicide of Luigi Tenco, of an anxious temperament, tortured and destroyed by his artistic failures.
Under the effect of alcohol and tranquilizers, Dalida will try a few months later, to end her days for the first time and will remain five days in a coma. When she got out of the hospital, she turns to spirituality and psychoanalysis and even thought of stopping her career. The adventure continues, but in 1970, a new drama strikes her: her former husband, Lucien Morisse, committed suicide in turn. The singer will be transfigured, becoming a more serious, injured artist.
After brief adventures with journalist Christian de la Mazière, Alain Delon, but also a student by the name of Lucio, who will lead to an abortion and sterility of the star in the 1960s, Dalida explodes on the sidelines of the Yéyé wave, in a different, singular register. That of a popular, but spiritual singer, almost mystical. A register also initiated: Dalida mobilizes very early against homophobia, which will make it over the years a gay icon, she will also fight AIDS until her death.
Richard Chanfray, “count of Saint-Germain”, new curse
Dalida met Richard Chantfray in the early 1970s, through Pascal Sevran. Man is a funny character, already very media. Antique dealer and “scientist”, he presents himself as the reincarnation of the “count of Saint-Germain”, adventurer and alchemist of the 18th century, he said that he had lived 17,000 years, having met Voltaire or frequented Louis XV and even having had a relationship with Madame de Pompadour … On television, he has already transformed a vulgar piece of metal into gold.
This strange relationship is suitable for Dalida, who is not, however, fooled by mythomania and the lies of this “Richard Saint-Germain” which intrigues the media and opinion and lives in the hook of the singer. Richard Chanfray will go so far as to record discs to propel his popularity. However, the idyll ends suddenly, in 1981. Dalida’s companion was arrested while he is with her in her villa in Corse. Incarcerated in Fresne until the singer pays her deposit, he is accused of voluntary assault and injuries.
And his judicial past breaks out in broad daylight. We learn that the whimsical “count” has served a 7 -year sentence for theft in the past. In 1976, he pulled the rifle on an intruder having introduced into the Dalida mansion, rue d’Orchampt. We also discover that he has been married since the age of 19 and has never divorced. After breaking up with Dalida, Richard Chanfray will embark on real estate speculation with other cases in the key and will end up committing suicide in exhaust in his car, with his new partner, in Ramatuelle, near Saint-Tropez, in 1983.
What happened for Dalida after this umpteenth painful relationship? An idyll with François Mitterrand will notably be questioned many years after the death of the singer. Many rumors were able to report a love story between the star and the President of the Republic elected in 1981. Rumors confirmed by Orlando, Dalida’s brother, who notably pulled out on this issue in the program “On is live”, on France 2, in 2022.
“He was with her to several different times,” said Bruno Gigliotti of her real name, detailing the heads of state to the singer “without her bodyguards”. To go see Dalida, François Mitterrand “crossed the rue d’Orchampt, a very tight little street where there was no light at all,” according to the producer. “He dared everything, he came directly and he sounded. Sometimes without calling before,” also assures Orlando, about this dotted story that few biographers by François Mitterrand will have confirmed, if it is not journalist Solenn de Royer in “The Last Secret” (Grasset), published in 2021.