Norbert of the MUSIC! MUSIC! MUSIC! facebook informed ESC Covers that singer and actress Françoise Hardy passed away.
French singer and actress Françoise Hardy has died at the age of 80. In 1963 she participated for Monaco in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song L’amour s’en va, where she came 5th.
Françoise Hardy, born and raised in Paris, suddenly became famous in the early 1960s with the dreamy song Tous les garçons et les filles. The song became an instant hit when a performance of the song by the then 18-year-old Hardy was shown during a break in the television broadcast about a referendum in 1962. In the years that followed, Hardy became a music and style icon. Due to her idiosyncratic, modern clothing style and her melancholic ballads – she often accompanied herself on guitar during performances – she became the best-known figure of yé-yé, the French variant of British beat music of that time, in the early 1960s.
In addition to her music career, Françoise Hardy was also an actress. She has appeared in numerous films since the 1960s. She also collaborated with famous fashion designers, such as Yves Saint Laurent and Paco Rabanne, and was admired by many. In the 2023 ranking of the 200 best singers of all time by the American magazine Rolling Stone, Hardy took 162nd place. She was the only artist from France on the list.
In recent decades, Hardy has struggled with health problems. She was first diagnosed with cancer about twenty years ago. In recent years she could no longer sing due to the treatments. She eventually died of throat cancer after years of illness.
Featured image – Robert Overeem from his collection