page_title: Sylvie Vartan
section_title: Yé-yé diva
hierarchical_section_title: Sylvie Vartan / Career / Yé-yé diva
caption_attribution_description: English: Sylvie Vartan Français&#160;: Sylvie Vartan
context_page_description: Sylvie Vartan is a Bulgarian-French singer and actress. She is known as one of the most productive and tough-sounding yé-yé artists. Her performances often featured elaborate show-dance choreography, and she made many appearances on French and Italian TV. With 50 million records and CD's sold worldwide, 2000 magazine covers and being the number one french female singer with concerts and audience worldwide, Sylvie Vartan is considered a true Legend and Icon.
  Yearly shows with then-husband Johnny Hallyday attracted full houses at the Olympia and the Palais des congrès de Paris throughout the 1960s and mid-1970s. In 2004, after a break in performances, she began recording and giving concerts of jazz ballads in francophone countries.
context_section_description: In December 1964, as Hallyday went into military service, Sylvie's brother Eddie hired two English songwriting session musicians, Tommy Brown on drums and Mick Jones on guitar, as they went to record in New York; they wrote her the hit "Cette lettre-là". Set in the smart design of the J.C. Averty Show, "Cette lettre-là" was the first of Sylvie Vartan's TV variety night performances. In 1966–67 she recorded more original hits. "Dis moi, que tu m'aimes" premiered on TV on 9 July 1967 was accompanied by a group of male dancers. "Le jour qui vient" was aired on the Dim dam dom program of the French Television 1 in color on 14 January 1968. "2'35 de bonheur" and "Comme un garçon" were other #1s in France, Italy, Belgium, Japan, or Korea.
  On 11 April 1968 Vartan suffered injuries in a traffic accident but was back on tour in August. She showed off her new sexy cabaret-dancer image to the French TV audience in the "Jolie poupée" show on 4 December 1968; the collaboration with Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier produced a highly entertaining result. The variety night included the performance of "Irrésistiblement", accompanied by elaborate girl-group choreography, and "Jolie Poupée", a dialogue between a doll Sylvie and an adult one.
  The hits of the "Jolie poupée" show were released as the Maritza album. In Italy, she released a cover version of Mina's "Zum zum zum". Being the 23rd-biggest-selling single of 1969 in Italy, Vartan's version did better in Italian charts than Mina's original. Vartan continued with her one-woman shows at the Paris Olympia in December 1968; they were published as the documentary Sylvie à L'Olympia.
  For nine Saturday nights in winter of 1969, Vartan starred in the Doppia coppia variety nights of RAI, performing her hits "Irrésistiblement" ("Irresistibilmente") and "Le jour qui vient" ("Una cicala canta") in Italian. In March 1969, "Irrestibilmente" entered the Italian charts at No. 3, peaked at No. 2 and stayed in Top Ten for 10 weeks. In 1969 the single was the No. 22 single on the Italian chart. The tender ballad "Blam blam blam", written especially for Doppia coppia, peaked at No. 14 on the Italian charts and was among the 100 biggest-selling singles in Italy in 1969.
  After her world tour in autumn 1969, she returned to Italy to perform "Festa negli occhi, festa nel cuore" on a Canzonissima variety night and "C'est un jour à rester couché" on the Incontro con Sylvie Vartan TV show, recorded in the Gattopardo Club of Messina. Her appearances were popular in Italy and France; she donned a different costume for each song, including plenty of short skirts and Barbarella boots. The cartoonists of both countries even drew Sylvie Vartan lookalikes.
caption: Sylvie 1966
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