Death of Thierry Ardisson: Television's "Man in Black" Has Died
Star television host and producer, renowned for his incisive and provocative interviews, Thierry Ardisson, died on July 14, at the age of 76, in Paris from liver cancer, announced his wife, LCI journalist Audrey Crespo-Mara.
Born in 1949 in Creuse, he began his career in advertising and co-founded the Business agency, with a knack for finding catchy slogans like "Lapeyre, there are no two of them" . In 1985, he launched the program Descente de police on TF1, in which he bombarded guest personalities with direct and brutal questions. It was stopped after a few months at the request of the High Authority for Audiovisual. This was followed in 1987 by Bains de minuit on La Cinq, presented live from the Les Bains Douches nightclub in Paris, then a year later Lunettes noires pour nuits blanches on Antenne 2, from another nightclub, the Palace , where all of Paris's political and cultural elite flocked to his microphone. Thierry Ardisson then imposed on the small screen his image of a cultured "man in black" and a muscular interviewer, sometimes to the point of vulgarity.
In 1997, after the failure of several programs, he found success again by launching on Paris Première Rive droite/Rive gauche, the first daily cultural magazine on television , which he co-hosted with Frédéric Beigbeder, Elisabeth Quint, Philippe Tesson. A year later, he was invited by France 2 to host Tout le monde en parle, on Saturdays in the second part of the evening. Alongside his accomplice Laurent Baffie, another expert in assumed provocations, he reigned there until 2006, date on which France Télévisions imposed a principle of exclusivity on its presenters, Thierry Ardisson preferred to leave this channel. He wanted to keep 93 faubourg Saint-Honoré, the celebrity dinner that he then hosted at his home on Paris Première.
He immediately joined Canal+, where his free-to-air Saturday night show Salut les Terriens! attracted 750,000 viewers in its first year. He then hosted it on C8 until 2019, when the show was late canceled by Vincent Bolloré, whom the host sued. He received €5 million in compensation from C8.
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In 2020, Thierry Ardisson achieved recognition with "Arditube" , a YouTube channel launched by the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) and dedicated to the impressive television heritage - 35 shows - of a presenter with openly Catholic and royalist convictions, not known for his modesty, but also a hard worker. The television man was also a press boss, did radio, produced series and films, and wrote several books including "The Man in Black" , published in May. Married three times, this father of three children was decorated with the Legion of Honor in 2024 by Emmanuel Macron.
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