He left without a goodbye, without any applause. The television is cruel. After the happiness for 22 years Sunday afternoon, Antenne 2 (later France 2), the deposed emperor was not even able to greet one last time to his public that he loved so much. It is the island of Elba, without the farewells of Fontainebleau. This June 21, 1998, it is not he who closes the shop, but his friend Jean-Claude Brialy. “James, I know you we look,” says Brialy, transformed once again into a ” Mother-Lachaise “, as it was called Thierry The Luron. Weakened and bruised, Jacques Martin attends his own funeral television. A page turns. For the first time since an eternity, back to school 1998 happen without the Sunday Martin.
Jacques Martin was what they called a indéboulonnable. Singer-songwriter talent at the beginning of her career, sassy reporter, improviser of genius, Big-headed hilarious, child friendly, designer extraordinaire, wells of knowledge inexhaustible, Martin, is the symbol of a popular culture that is demanding. It is TF1 in the early 70’s who had entrusted the keys of the after-noon Sunday. He had held a season. His Petit rapporteur insolent and hilarious had not rained in the high place. Cancelled. Transferred to Antenna 2, Martin invests the same timeslot in 1976 and began to create his empire : Sunday Martin. The number of broadcast hours, a series of sequences alternating the impertinence (The Lens with part of the same team as Le Petit Rapporteur), the zany (Amazing but true), the games (The world is yours), the culture (The Travellers History with Alain Decaux), etc., Point of organ of this flow of content : fans of The School.
The concept is straightforward : pretty blonde singing the securities of a guest star and are given a note (which oscillates between 9 and 10, because ” children are wonderful “). Martin, ringmaster for diaper excels. He does get the truth out of the mouths of children, builds confidence, bouncing to make you laugh the room, gently pokes fun at the parents. The facilitator, petri culture classic, offers every Sunday a combination of good humor. The hearings panic. Recorded at the Empire theatre, Sunday, Martin lives each week an Austerlitz of the audience. With the roast and the apple pie, Jacques Martin became the institution of Sunday. The critics, they, fustigent an emission lower end of the range.
The folks at “The View” : Pierre Bonte, Stéphane Collaro, James Martin, Imec and Alain Scoff. © JACQUES CHEVRY / Ina / Ina via AFP
Salary and increased costs, hearing and impertinence down
in Parallel to this candy Sunday, Martin is more acid on RTL. Associate regular Large Heads, he spread his culture and his impertinence, his wickedness (poor Jacques Chazot or Alice Sapritch), and his sense of improvisation. Every afternoon, around Philippe Bouvard – with which he will eventually get annoyed to the point of “drawing” with Laurent Ruquier on Europe 1 – Martin makes you laugh. A laugh to the French : never vulgar, often referenced. His improvisations with Olivier de Kersauson and Jean Yanne are pieces of bravery. Everything succeeds him. Martin reign on the 1980s.
Laurent Ruquier and Jacques Martin during the show, “as Well font font font”. © GAUTHIER PHILIPPE/SIPA / SIPAAu the beginning of the next decade, the success remains. Martin is rounding. His humor and his irreverence too. And are font font, the dot cheeky Sunday Martin is not as sarcastic as Le Petit Rapporteur or The Lens. The skits often fall flat and pour into the facility. However, this program allows new talent to emerge : Ruquier, Courbet, Lemoine, Gerra. TF1, which has had enough of suffering from the law of Sir Martin, counter-attack with a coalition of american series and sports. The audience is dwindling while the costs of the program fly by. Martin, the salary of the pharaohs, did not see the danger. His three-year contracts are protecting it. But when a new executive arrives at the head of the public service, the unthinkable happens : Jacques Martin will not be of the party in September 1998. A few days after the announcement, the moderator is the victim of a cerebral vascular accident. A part of her body is paralyzed, forcing him to walk away. Brialy takes over, and a race against the clock begins : Martin will he be delivered up for the last issue of June ? There is not going to happen. “The leaders of France Télévisions I have drawn above, they have leached like a dog and are, in part, responsible for what happened to me, they have led a campaign against me, the goal was for me to liquidate,” says Martin in Le Figaro, July 1998.
Solitude
Liquidate Martin and install Drucker. The other sacred monster of the PAF gets the check and goes up Strongly on Sunday, so the afternoon sofa version show-biz. As a gesture of appeasement, Michel Drucker sends a box of chocolates. Reply from Martin : “This is nice ! Especially when one is a diabetic… ” the Irony of history that, in 2018, in full hunting white male over the age of 50, the direction of France Télévisions wants to sacrifice Drucker. Bis repetita… no place. Drucker loses its Highly Sunday, but guard Strongly next Sunday. A season pass and after a few media outlets acid, and especially a hearing catastrophic for its substitutes, Drucker found his red sofa and succeeds where Martin, abandoned by his body, had failed.
Jacques Martin in 1996. © ANDANSON/SIPA / SIPA / ANDANSON/SIPAÀ from 1998, the speaker first looks to rebuild physically – he will only get hold of that part of its mobility – and morally. Laurent Ruquier, the rare faithful, offering him a return to the sources on Europe 1. Television, it, do to remember. We will see one last time, puffy and speech difficult, always chez Ruquier on a broadcast tribute to Jean Yanne, the friend of the delusions disappeared. Otherwise, the phone no longer rings. Fallen ill, he decides to isolate himself in a large hotel in Biarritz. The affable, no longer speak. The man in a hurry who rode by opening the arm rest prostrate, laying down the sea. The one which launched the “this is my friend” no longer sees a person. The bon vivant’s crying. In September 2007, at the age of 74 years, Jacques Martin died of a cancer. The newspapers and televisions will spend long tributes to this clown forgot. Under our applause. Finally.
Next episode : Patrick Poivre d’arvor and Claire Chazal, when TF1 divorce with its star couple.
