In Memoriam: French Diva "Françoise Hardy" Dies At 80

Françoise Hardy, the famous French singer and actress has died at 80. Hardy had numerous Top 10 albums and singles in Europe and appeared in several films, one of those was the iconical "Grand Prix" directed by John Frankenheimer and released in 1966. Her son, Thomas DuTronc, revealed the news on social media but did not provide details, only a statement in French, "Maman est partie" (mom is gone).

Unfortunately, Hardy was diagnosed with cancer 20 years ago and had been in declining health. Born on January 17, 1944 during the Nazi-occupied Paris, she had a career in music and also a film career in the 1960's and 1970s, highlighted by the famous film "Grand Prix" John Frankenheimer’s road-racing drama starring James Garner, Antonio Sabato Jr., Yves Montand and Eva Marie Saint, and several famous drivers in active back then such as Phil Hill, Graham Hill, Jo Siffert, Jim Clark & Bruce McLaren amognst others, the film eventually won three Oscars, for Sound, Sound Effects and Editing. 

Hardy broke out with the 1962 hit "Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles" (All The Boys Y Las Hijas) which topped the singles charts in her homeland and several other countries. She followed that with a second French No. 1, single "C’est à L’amour Auquel Je Pense" (That Love Is What I Think). She was well-known for her melancholic style, she epitomized the “yé-yé” wave style, achieving nearly a dozen Top 10 singles in France through the 1960s, and scored nine Top 10 albums there, her most recent in 2018. She remains among the best-selling French recording artists.

Hardy also had success in Belgium, Germany and French-speaking Canada, along with three mid-’60s Top 30 singles in the UK, but curiously she never charted in the U.S. even thought, she ranked No. 162 on Rolling Stone‘s 2023 list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. 

She also was a writter authored several fiction and non-fiction books and alos had a curious side career in astrology, she was married to French singer-songwriter Jacques Dutronc in the 1980s and had one child, named Thomas.