I have always marveled that celebrities who were big in in the early 1980s–when I started visiting France–are still important today. Depardieu, Arielle Dombasle, and of course Catherine Deneuve. There are fewer superstars, but once they hit the summit, they are not knocked off their perch by others, the way they are in America. So I was pleased to see this excellent interview with Johnny Hallyday in today’s New York Times. It explains who is is as well as his hallowed place among the French.

It is hard to explain the place he has in French life — he has done more than 100 tours, sold more than 100 million records, made 47 studio albums and 26 live ones. He has been on more than 2,100 magazine covers, and his Wikipedia entry in French is longer than Jesus Christ’s. […] He described visiting sick children on tour, “and on the fireplace I see pictures of me in the middle of pictures of the family,” he said with some astonishment still.

Health problems, suicide attempts, and living in Los Angeles–where most people don’t know who he is–have contributed to Hallyday’s humility.