1927–2001 · French singer, composer and pianist · music
Born François Gilbert Léopold Silly in Toulon in 1927, Bécaud was the most physically explosive performer in post-war French popular song — nicknamed “Monsieur 100,000 Volts” for what he did to a stage and to an audience. The Paris Olympia was his home room; he first appeared there in 1954 and returned to it for the rest of his life. He wrote the music for “Je t’appartiens,” and his own recording of it was the first to reach the public, issued in December 1955 on La Voix de son Maître — though no source records when he taped it, and by one French account he had vowed not to record it at all. He also wrote “Et maintenant,” which travelled abroad as “What Now My Love.” He died in Paris in 2001.