The life of Dalida, international star of the song carried away by melancholy

Stéphane Bern, edited by Alexis Patri 6:55 p.m., December 23, 2021

We are in 1987, in Paris.

For more than a year now, Dalida has been sinking into a long depression that she still manages to hide from her fans, on television or during her concerts.

Alone in her big house in rue d'Orchampt, in Montmartre, she hardly ever leaves her room.

Behind the closed windows, she spends the time knitting, and repeats the film of her life enamelled with immense happiness and drama.

>> Find all the shows of Matthieu Noël and Stéphane Bern every day from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Europe 1 as well as in replay and podcast here

"Life is unbearable to me, forgive me."

A few months earlier, Dalida had embarked on a heart-lost relationship with a man, a doctor in his forties. But this last love is more and more distant. He must join her this evening of May 2, but cancels at the last moment. Dalida does not say anything about it to those close to her. She swallows barbiturates with whiskey and traces these last words, to the attention of her audience: "Life is unbearable to me, forgive me."

Thus, at 54 years of age, the one who had spent 30 years in the light dies out in the shadows.

When she disappears, Dalida is a planetary star.

She has sold 85 million records worldwide.

An extraordinary fate, for little Iolanda Gigliotti, daughter of Italian immigrants, born in 1933 in a white house in Cairo.

She met music very early on, in the arms of a father, principal violin at the opera.

A beauty queen turned artist

Lonely child taking refuge behind bifocal glasses, Iolanda is mocked by her comrades.

Yet, under her mounts, she is lovely.

So beautiful that she won her first beauty contest as a teenager, then decided to compete for the title of Miss Egypt, in 1954, in an alluring leopard pin-up two-piece swimsuit. 

If she does not win, she is quickly spotted by two directors who hire her for two small roles in the cinema.

His artistic career is launched.

One of them is French and advises him to try his luck in Paris.

On the plane that takes her to the capital, the beauty queen trains to scribble autographs on a small notebook: she signs Dalila (and not Dalida), a name in fashion in Egypt and which she has always liked.

>> READ ALSO -

 The real story of Barbara, mischievous singer under her cold tunes

Arriving in Paris on Christmas Day 1954, Dalila soon despairs of succeeding in the cinema and turns to song. She gives singing tours in cabarets including the very chic one at the Villa d'Este. The young girl has only one dress and has to tighten her belt, but her accent sticks to the fashion of Mediterranean song and enchants the Parisian public. In the process, Delilah renamed herself Dalida, to avoid confusion with the biblical character. 

One evening, Bruno Coquatrix, director of the legendary Olympia hall, notices her and suggests that she participate in a radio-hook:

.

A premonitory title if there is one.

In the room, in the first row, two men look at her: Lucien Morisse and Eddie Barclay.

The famous producer will admit later in his memoirs that "the Italian-Egyptian accent was exactly what he was looking for, since musical exoticism was still paying off at the time."

A voice to work on, talent and a certain allure… All that is needed: Barclay signs a contract with Dalida that very evening.

"We expected a killing, we attended a baptism"

Lucien Morisse, meanwhile, literally fell in love. He is responsible for the musical programming on Europe n ° 1: the hits, he's the one who makes them. So that's good! He takes Dalida's career in hand. Less than six months later, it is glory, with the title

which loops on the radio.

Dalida connects the hits and the first parts, those of Charles Aznavour and Gilbert Bécaud, then tours in France and Europe.

In 1961, after a few years of relations, "Mademoiselle Success" married Lucien Morisse.

She leaves him after only a few months of marriage, which part of the profession does not forgive her.

The press is fierce towards him.

Without this man, it is believed, she is nothing.

At the end of the same year, Dalida made her first Olympia, in a noxious atmosphere.

International successes and intimate setbacks in the chain

Before entering the scene, she even receives a funeral wreath… And yet!

"We expected a killing, we attended a baptism", writes the critic Claude Sarraute in the columns of the World.

“She turned her 2000 spectators over like so many pancakes, spread out in so many armchairs.” Dalida has proven that she is a true artist.

She also knew how to transform, dye her hair blonde, leave her Hollywood dresses for a younger and more modern yé-yé style.

This adaptability will make its longevity.

A dramatic diva at the end of the 1960s, she knew how to revive her career with popular successes:

 and her

duet

 with Alain Delon in 1970.

In 1974, 

, his biggest worldwide success, was No. 1 in 12 countries.

Dalida shows the full extent of her talent as a singer and actress.

In the mid-1970s, she was one of the first in France to embark on disco, and again signed one of her hits:

. 

Despite the immense success of Dalida, Iolanda, she lives in her private life a series of terrible dramas.

Her great love, singer Luigi Tenco, committed suicide in their hotel room in 1967. A month later, the singer tried to join him by swallowing pills, and spent several months in convalescence.

In 1970, her former husband Lucien Morisse put an end to his life. 

>> READ ALSO - 

The astonishing and terrible life of the lord of Josephine Baker

Five years later, his friend Mike Brant defeated himself.

In 1983, his ex-companion, Richard Chanfray, also committed suicide.

Nicknamed "the black widow" in the newspapers, Dalida convinces herself that she brings bad luck to the men she loves.

Over the course of the trials, Dalida sank into depression.

She sees herself getting old, replaying videos of her younger for hours.

In 1986, she landed a big role, that of a grandmother in

, by the Egyptian Youssef Chahine.

A grueling shoot, which asks him to relive personal suffering.

Critics are unanimous in praising the performance.

But the sight of her aged face on the big screen, without makeup, her hair hidden under veils, horrifies her.

“I wouldn't want my death to be stolen from me,” warned Dalida, who had sung about wanting to die on stage.

So that evening in May 1987, she orchestrated everything for her departure, far, far from the spotlight.

But there is one thing that she had not foreseen, when she sang that "'with time, we forget the faces and we forget the voices".

It was because time would never erase Dalida.