EDDY MITCHELL. French singer, lyricist and actor, Eddy Mitchell is considered one of the pioneers of rock in France. The opportunity to take an interest in his private life and his second wife.
Eddy Mitchell still at the top. At 79, the French rocker published, last May, the reissue of his latest album, Country Rock. The opportunity for him to go, this Tuesday, June 14, 2022, to the set of Daily, on TMC. And the opportunity for us to look into the private life of Eddy Mitchell, and in particular his wife, Muriel, with whom he has been married for more than forty years.
The couple met in October 1979, six months before getting married in Saint-Tropez, on May 24, 1980. From their marriage a daughter, Pamela, was born in 1982. It was Johnny Hallyday who was chosen as the godfather of the third child of Eddy Mitchell, who is one of the two godfathers of Laura Smet, the daughter of Taulier and Nathalie Baye.
Very discreet in the media, Muriel Bailleul will have leaked little information about her. “Muriel, my second wife, inspired me with one of my rare love songs, The Elephant Graveyard“, however, revealed the rocker in the JDD, in October 2020. According to the magazine people Closer, the couple lives in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and own a house in Saint-Tropez.
Five Victoires de la Musique, a César for best actor, an immense career and dozens of hits. This is how we could sum up, very briefly, his career. Before being Eddy Mitchell and having the career we know him to be, Claude Moine was born on July 3, 1942, in the ninth arrondissement of Paris. Coming from a modest family – his mother is a bank employee and his father works at the Paris Region Public Transport Company (STCRP) – he discovered music in general and rock at an early age. n’roll in particular. He was only eleven years old and at that time, this musical genre became essential in the United States. fan ofElvis Presley and Gene Vincent, he abandons his birth name: Claude Moine becomes Eddy Mitchell.
He became the lead singer of the first French rock band, The black socksin 1960. He left the group after three years to start a solo career whose success would continue decades after decades with hits like On the road to Memphis (1976), The last session (1977) or Water-based mint color (1980). Alongside his musical successes, he began a film career in the 1960s by playing his own role in The Parisiansa film with sketches notably featuring Catherine Deneuve and Johnny Hallyday. It was Bertrand Tavernier who revealed Eddy Mitchell’s acting talents by giving him a role in 1981. He continued by giving the reply to Miou-Miou and Roger Hanin in the comedy Be careful, a woman can hide another by Georges Lautner.
From the mid-1980s to the 1990s, nothing seemed to stop the rocker’s career as an actor, who went from the films of Jean-Pierre Mocky in 1984 to those of comedians Les Nuls who gave him a small role in the mythical comedy The City of Fear in 1994. The following year is that of his consecration since he obtains the César for best supporting role in Happiness is in the meadow by Etienne Chatiliez, in which he plays opposite Michel Serrault. After this consecration, Eddy Mitchell plays alongside Christian Clavier in Lovely Rita in 2003 and participated in the dubbing of the animated film The Magic Roundabout in 2005. We have to wait until 2012 to see him again at the top of the bill thanks to the film of his friend Etienne Chatiliez alongside Valérie Bonneton and Alexandra Lamy.
For several years, Eddy Mitchell has deserted concert halls. Worse for his fans: the singer had even announced that he no longer wanted to perform on stage. After half a century of career, he announced, in 2009, his last tour. “These are not fake goodbyes even if I’m afraid I miss it. This last tour will necessarily be moving”, he confided in the columns of Parisian at that time. His farewells, Eddy Mitchell repeated them in 2015, just after the Vieilles Canailles tour with his friends Jacques Dutronc and Johnny Hallyday. “I don’t want to do 90-date tours anymore. I’m fed up with the gourmet salad at one o’clock in the hotel lobby. I don’t want to see NRJ 12 on TV at two o’clock in the morning. “, he added to the microphone of Europe 1 in 2015.
It’s hard to talk about Eddy Mitchell’s career without mentioning the Vieilles Canailles trio. This mythical trio that he forms with Johnny Hallyday and Jacques Dutronc, Eddy Mitchell is the instigator. In 2014, the three pillars of French rock are offering their audiences a first salvo of eventful concerts in Paris. But in 2017, the Taulier launched another idea: a new tour, but in the provinces. “We refuse nothing to Johnny”, dropped at the time the interpreter of Water-based mint color. It must be said that between Johnny Hallyday and Eddy Mitchell, the friendship is old. It even dates back to the 1960s, when the French public already adores the one who will become the Idol of young people. The two rockers liked to meet in the Trinité district of Paris to talk about music for hours. “We met at a surprise party, in the square de la Trinité. I gave him a pie because he had stolen my Gene Vincent records (…). He finally gave them back to me and apologized, we quickly hit it off,” he confided.
If with the death of Johnny Hallyday, France lost one of its most emblematic singers, Eddy Mitchell lost a dear and long-time friend. “I miss him,” confided to Parisian Eddy Mitchell about his friend who died in December 2017 and whom he remembers “a strong guy, a living guy, living as he wanted”. Since then, the crooner has several times confided his sadness after the disappearance of Taulier, in particular in a documentary broadcast on France 3 in November 2019. “Johnny I loved him, and then that’s it. He was a real friend , it was someone very very close, who I miss … and then that I would find one day”, explained Eddy Mitchell. And to Jacques Dutronc, third Vieille Canaille, to go one better with humor in the same documentary: “You have to tell Eddy that he doesn’t sing ‘If there’s only one left, I’ll be that one’ (one of his songs editor’s note.) all the same. It doesn’t suit me… The bastard, he had already planned everything.”
If the friendship between Eddy Mitchell and Johnny Hallyday has spanned the ages, the same cannot be said of the good relationship between the crooner and the last wife of the Taulier, Laeticia Hallyday. The latter would not have appreciated the behavior of the friend of her husband who disappeared during his funeral, says the journalist Benjamin Locoge in the book “The ballad of Johnny & Laeticia: made in rock’n’roll”. The day of the ceremony at the Madeleine, Eddy Mitchell would have refused to be part of the official procession. But their estrangement would already date back to the last tour of the Vieilles Canailles in 2017, during which the singer would have accused Laeticia Hallyday of not sparing enough of her husband, already suffering from cancer which will be fatal to him. “Eddy also believes that his old friend was not sufficiently protected by Laeticia”, explains the journalist in his book, highlighting in particular a memory, when the Taulier had to wait for a helicopter after a concert: “Johnny had to hang around two ages before being able to go home. All this only because Madame had people to see… My poor Johnny…”.
And with the death of Johnny Hallyday, then the endless war of inheritance that his heirs are waging, the tensions have not subsided between Eddy Mitchell and Laeticia Hallyday. The singer had even reaffirmed his unwavering support for his goddaughter: “I don’t understand why we disinherit our children, we shouldn’t do it (…). We have the right to disinherit our children in the United States for his cat or his dog, but we are not Americans“, he lamented to AFP in May 2018. Since then, Eddy Mitchell has not lost an opportunity to send more or less discreet spades to Laeticia Hallyday…
“For me you were more than a friend, a half brother, almost a double…” In his latest album released on December 17, Country RockEddy Mitchell addresses many current topics, but also his friend, Johnny Hallyday, who died in December 2017. With A little bit of love, the rocker offers a true declaration of friendship, almost fraternal, to the Idol of young people. “One evening, looking at old photos, I found lots of pictures with Johnny. I said to myself: ‘It’s about him that I have to make a song.'”, says Eddy Mitchell about this. in the columns of Télé Star. “How I miss him, it was easy. We were like two brothers. We met, I was 15, he was 14. We never left each other, never yelled at. Johnny was the godfather of my daughter Pamela, I am the godfather of Laura. It was the family”, he adds.
The opportunity also for Eddy Mitchell to give his opinion on the relatives of Johnny Hallyday, he who often does not miss an opportunity to send spades to the widow of Taulier, Laeticia Hallyday. In the same song, A Little Bit of Love, he sings: “To be adored, sometimes to be wrong. To discover that betrayal begins with love or friendship. But it’s not for lack of not having warned you . You didn’t listen to anything.” Eddy Mitchell explains about this text to Télé Star: “He let himself be betrayed. He gave a lot, without distinction.