Françoise Hardy obit

Françoise Hardy, Influential French Singer and Actress, Dies at 80

News of her passing was shared on social media by her son 

She was not on the list.

Françoise Hardy — the celebrated, best-selling French singer-songwriter and actress associated with European yé-yé pop music — has died. News of Hardy's passing was shared on social media by her son, singer-songwriter and guitarist Thomas Dutronc. She was 80.

Hardy began her music career in the early '60s, releasing a series of untitled albums via French label Disques Vogue that would come to be respectively known by their most popular songs. Debut LP Tout les garçons et les filles arrived in 1962 and became a commercial success, putting Hardy at the forefront of French popular music. The following year, translated re-recordings of Tout les garçons et les filles would race up the charts in Italian, German and English-speaking markets. In reference to her early popular music style, the US version of the album was released under the title The "Yeh-Yeh" Girl from Paris!

Five of Hardy's early full-lengths were notably reissued in 2015 by Light in the Attic sub-label Future Days Recordings, bringing her material to new generations of listeners.

A press release for the reissue series offered, "Françoise Hardy, with her brunette hair and alluring bangs, will forever personify a particularly French brand of cool. She was one of the few girls to write her own songs, and she did so from a place of depth and subtlety. Though she was a muse to the likes of Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, Hardy remained reticent of fame, preferring privacy and modesty. She was a pop singer with the heart of a chanteuse, a singer-songwriter in an age before such a thing was known, and a style icon incredulous of others' admiration of her."

Hardy was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2004, and pursued chemotherapy treatment that was initially successful. She was admitted to hospital in March 2015 after her condition worsened, and nearly died upon being put into an artificial coma. During her stay, she also broke her hip and elbow. That year, she told French daily Le Figaro, "I'm very isolated, very handicapped by illness. There are periods where I absolutely can't see anyone and I can't go out."

Hardy's continued treatment left her unable to continue singing later in life. Speaking with magazine Paris Match in 2021, she shared, "I am not afraid of dying, but I am very, very afraid of suffering, especially since that is already the case, afraid also of the suffering of having to separate myself from the two I love most in the world, Thomas and [father Jacques Dutronc]." She was a proponent of physician-assisted death, sharing that year, "When my condition becomes even more unbearable, I will, unfortunately, not have the relief of knowing I can euthanized," calling France's stance at the time "inhumane."

In addition to music, Hardy landed roles as a supporting actress in the films Château en Suède, Une balle au cœur and the American production Grand Prix. She became a muse for fashion designers such as André Courrèges, Yves Saint Laurent and Paco Rabanne, and collaborated with photographer Jean-Marie Périer. Hardy also developed a career as an astrologer, having written extensively on the subject from the 1970s onwards. In addition, she worked as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction books from the 2000s. Her autobiography Le désespoir des singes... et autres bagatelles was a best-seller in France. As a public figure, Hardy was known for her shyness, disenchantment with celebrity life and self-deprecatory attitude, attributed to her lifelong struggles with anxiety and insecurity. She was married to fellow French singer-songwriter Jacques Dutronc in 1981 until her death, and their only son, Thomas, is also a musician. In 2021, Hardy announced that her health had worsened and that she would not be able to sing again owing to the effects of cancer therapy.

Hardy remains one of the best-selling singers in French history, and continues to be regarded as an iconic and influential figure in both French pop and fashion. In 2006, she was awarded the Grande médaille de la chanson française, an honorary award given by the Académie française, in recognition of her career in music. Her work has appeared on several critics' lists.