In 1954, Roger Morizot, known as "Doudou" Morizot, worked with Bruno Coquatrix to rehabilitate the Parisian auditorium of the Olympia which was then only an old abandoned cinema hall.

He will remain there as manager until 1988. In the meantime, he lived on a daily basis with stars like Piaf, Brel, Hallyday or Gréco, as he tells it on Sunday on Europe 1.

INTERVIEW

For more than 30 years, he was the manager of the legendary Parisian spectacle scene, the Olympia.

In 1954, Roger Morizot worked at the Cirque d'Hiver in Paris when its director, Joseph Bouglione, told him to go help Bruno Coquatrix to restore the Olympia, which was then only an old cinema in the 'abandonment.

Finally, Roger Morizot will remain at 28, boulevard des Capucines until 1988. Behind the scenes of the auditorium, he forged links with a number of international stars and French stars, as he told this Sunday at the microphone of Europe 1, on the occasion of the release of his book 

I saw them all begin

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Edith Piaf, the superstitious

His strongest links, "Doudou", as the stars nicknamed him, probably maintained them with Edith Piaf.

"She called me 'her little mouth' because she loved me," he recalls.

Roger Morizot describes a "very superstitious" singer, for whom he had almost become like a lucky charm.

"She wanted me to be there when she left her dressing room to go on stage, to accompany her."

To satisfy the interpreter of "La Vie en rose", "Doudou" had even "removed a piece of linoleum" so that Edith Piaf could "touch wood (…) before entering the scene".

"Every time she arrived on stage, a very rare thing, all the musicians stood up to greet her. She was a great lady," he says.

Jacques Brel also made a big impression on the former manager, in particular because of his stage fright.

"When he was in his dressing room, he spoke to everyone, he was good. Before entering the scene, he vomited, every time," says Roger Morizot.

For him, Jacques Brel was nonetheless "a great gentleman, a very, very great gentleman. Kindness…"

Johnny's packed dressing room

The memories are innumerable in the memory of Roger Morizot.

There are also those times when, in Juliette Gréco's dressing room, he found himself "on the floor" doing "puzzles as large as the room" with the artist.

"She loved it, so I was helping her," he says today with simplicity.

Then there was Johnny Hallyday, whose dressing room was often packed without anyone really knowing why.

"It was packed with musicians, girls he met, staff. Everyone occupied the place, his home, and he let himself be."

For Roger Morizot, Johnny was "a good boy" sometimes, perhaps, a little overwhelmed by the effervescence which surrounded him.

"He did not see what was going on around him", slips only the former manager, laconic.

Things only he could see, behind the scenes at the Olympia.