"I just have to think of them to transform myself into them. A detail, a + defect +, a way of speaking and I caught them", confided the one who, in the 1970s and 1980s, was the unmissable guest on television shows. by Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier, Danièle Gilbert and Patrick Sébastien.

On stage, the resemblance to his "victims" is stunning.

He slips into the skin of his muses, without aping, and becomes a diva himself.

Never mean - "I could only imitate the people I loved" - he evoked them by saying "my Maillan" or "my Feuillère".

Women are not his only "victims", he also imitated Aznavour, De Funès, Montand or even Dutronc.

Born Claude Thibaudat on June 2, 1930 to a Parisian father and a Provençal mother, he never left the 9th arrondissement of the capital where he grew up.

Under the Occupation, he made the 400 blows with his childhood friend, a certain François Truffaut.

"His mother didn't take much care of him, mine took a liking to him. He was a half-brother and I was going to see if he had had dinner, if he had slept or if he was not 'was not a refugee in a cinema in the neighborhood as he was used to,' he said in 2012 to the weekly Le Point.

Claude Véga made an officer of Arts and Letters by the Minister of Culture Fredéric Mitterrand, in Paris on July 1, 2010 in Paris FRANCOIS GUILLOT AFP / Archives

Truffaut will also offer him a role, that of a disturbing strangler, in his film "Domicile marital" (1970).

"Giant by the humor"

He quickly dropped his business studies for drama lessons and worked in the evenings at the Liberty's cabaret.

"I wanted to become an actor. I started with imitations to survive and pay for my lessons at the Conservatoire. I recited La Fontaine's Fables, like + Le Chêne et le Roseau +, alternating around ten voices".

Tobacco assured.

One evening, Maria Callas is in the room and hears him imitate her.

She immediately becomes infatuated with him and wants to have him with her on the shows.

Same for the actress Edwige Feuillère.

Claude Véga also performs at Bobino and opens for several great artists such as Edith Piaf, Joséphine Baker and Charles Trénet.

He, the modest and discreet man, meets with immense success.

We only swear by him.

"He is small in height (1m65) but he is a giant in humor", wrote L'Aurore in 1973. The following year, the program "Top à Claude Véga" was followed by 70% of viewers.

At the age of 60, in 1990, he gave up imitation to devote himself exclusively to his other passions, theater and drawing.

We find him in particular at the Comédie de Paris in "Drôle de goûter", based on texts by Boris Vian.

He also enjoyed success with "Piaf, je t'aime" at the Cirque d'hiver (1996) - two nominations for the Molières - then in the play "Sylvia", directed by Lars Schmidt.

Also endowed with a nice pencil stroke, he regularly published almanacs illustrated with naive and fresh drawings à la Jacques Faizant.

© 2022 AFP