TF1 recounts without concession the tragic fate of Jean-Luc Delarue

The audacity of TF1 is extraordinary, commensurate with the immense star represented by Jean-Luc Delarue. While the first channel generally programs a fiction, a great entertainment or a match of the France team in prime time, it chose to bet this Wednesday August 24 on a documentary, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the death of the animator. This survey, called “Jean-Luc Delarue, 10 years already: success in excess”paints the portrait of this prince of the small screen whose broadcasts have recorded audience shares worthy of a football World Cup match. “We decided to offer this documentary in three episodes because we wanted to tell more in depth his personality, which has often been caricatured”says Eve Ewing, the general manager of Reservoir Prod, the company that produces this tribute, and which was founded in 1994 by the deceased.

Read alsoTF1 devotes an evening to Jean-Luc Delarue for the 10th anniversary of his death

During these two and a half hours, directors Christophe Janin and Matthieu Valluet depict the intense, passionate and tragic life of Jean-Luc Delarue. They first draw the contours of his childhood in a family led by a mother with an English degree and a father who is a professor of American civilization. Then, the two journalists meticulously expose his meteoric rise, from his debut at TV6 to his triumph on France Télévisions. And, as the minutes go by, the authors of the investigation subtly reveal, without any sensationalism, the way in which his failings have gradually devoured the qualities of the respectable entrepreneur and the ideal son-in-law that France cherished. A complex personality, a doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, sometimes lucid sometimes under cocaine, told using unpublished archive images and powerful testimonies.

The emotion of Jean-Pierre Elkabbach and Christophe Dechavanne

Faustine BollaertSophie Davant, Kad Merad, Marc-Olivier Fogiel, Flavie Flament: many TV personalities, who rubbed shoulders with Jean-Luc Delarue, have agreed to pay tribute to his memory. Even Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, former president of France Télévisions, returns at length, and sometimes with emotion, to the checkered relationship he established with the one he considered his little brother. He also bluntly evokes the miraculous contract that the host of “It’s discussed” signed when he put his suitcases in the corridors of France 2, and the criticisms that followed. Christophe Dechavanne, who knew Jean-Luc Delarue well, praises the talented producer he was. He also confides that he would have loved to maintain a bond of friendship with him today. And, in front of a shot where the two animators are side by side, the throat of Christophe Dechavanne is tied and the latter does not manage to contain his tears. “If there is anyone I would like to be a friend to deeply, and at home it is a huge value, it would be himhe breathes painfully, wiping his eyes. I didn’t think it would come to this. You piss me off”he adds, disconcerted by the grief that invades him.

“He had a fairly paternalistic relationship”

Eve Ewing, General Manager of Reservoir Prod.

Beyond the celebrities who punctuate these three episodes, his mother Maryse and his father Jean-Claude also tell the relationship that bound them to their son. Many collaborators, who officiated in the shadow of Jean-Luc Delarue, in turn delivered their memories in front of the cameras. Eve Ewing was among his close colleagues. An assiduous viewer of “It’s discussed”, she ended up getting an internship at Reservoir Prod and then approached the star presenter professionally. “He tended to say we were a close-knit family. He had a fairly paternalistic relationship, he was not very attentive to our difficulties but he was very attentive to the professional qualities of each other., she says. However, a few witnesses are missing, like his widow, Anissa, and his 15-year-old son Jean, the fruit of his relationship with Elisabeth Bost. These two women clashed on the legal ground within the framework of the succession of Jean-Luc Delarue. None wished to speak.