The film star Catherine Deneuve kept up a lifelong affair with the rock singer Johnny Hallyday behind his wives’ backs, it has been claimed in their native France.
The pair became lovers when they were teenagers, and their passionate trysts continued right up until the ‘French Elvis’s’ death three years ago, aged 74.
Hallyday frequently spoke about a favourite secret lover – referring to her by the name Lucille, after his 1964 hit ‘Lady Lucille’.
Now a new book called ‘Lady Lucille’ reveals she was in fact Ms Deneuve, star of films including Belle de Jour, The Last Metro, and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
They met on the set of the 1961 movie Tales of Paris, which is called Les Parisiennes in France, and continued to regularly sleep together for at least the next 50 years.
They met on the set of the 1961 movie Tales of Paris, which is called Les Parisiennes in France, and continued to regularly sleep together for at least the next 50 years. They are pictured together in the famous film
The pair became lovers when they were teenagers, and their passionate trysts continued right up until the ‘French Elvis’s’ death three years ago, aged 74. They are pictured together at an event in Paris
The film star Catherine Deneuve (pictured) kept up a lifelong affair with the rock singer Johnny Hallyday behind his wives’ backs, it has been claimed in their native France
‘Catherine remains the great and beautiful love of the 18-year-old me,’ Hallyday is quoted as saying in Gilles Lhote’s new biography.
‘The tenderness and friendship have remained. We share feelings until this day,’ Hallyday added, before he succumbed to cancer in 2017.
At the time he was married to his fourth wife, Laeticia Boudou, but she allegedly, like his earlier wives, turned a blind eye to his numerous affairs, including the one with Ms Deneuve.
‘If Mick Jagger had 4000 mistresses, Johnny Hallyday was not far behind,’ Mr Lhote writes.
Ms Deneuve ‘was the love of a lifetime’ and she represented ‘a passion lived in hiding. Catherine was what other women do not have.’
Ms Deneuve (left aged 18 and right last year), who is now 76, was married to the English photographer David Bailey for seven years up until 1972
‘Catherine remains the great and beautiful love of the 18-year-old me,’ Hallyday (pictured in Paris in 1980) is quoted as saying in Gilles Lhote’s new biography
Mr Lhote added: ‘Johnny told me: ‘When the time is right, it would be good if you recounted the real story of Lady Lucille’.
Hallyday, who sold more than 110 million records worldwide, including 22 platinum albums, said in his own 1997 autobiography: ‘When we were young, Lucille and I signed a pact. Our love was so intense, so pure, so physical and so impossible that we swore – whatever may happen to us – to look after each other in hard time’.
His career in the French speaking world was meteoric – in 1966 he was supported at a concert by a Jimi Hendrix and members of the Rolling Stones became personal friends – but he never revealed who Lucille was.
Hallyday (pictured in 1962), who sold more than 110 million records worldwide, including 22 platinum albums, said in his own 1997 autobiography: ‘When we were young, Lucille and I signed a pact. Our love was so intense, so pure, so physical and so impossible that we swore – whatever may happen to us – to look after each other in hard time’
Ms Deneuve was frequently pictured with Mr Hallyday (pictured in 2017) when he was alive, but she has never commented on the details of their close relationship
Ms Deneuve, who is now 76, was married to the English photographer David Bailey for seven years up until 1972.
She had a son from an earlier relationship with the French director Roger Vadim, and a daughter with the Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni.
Ms Deneuve was frequently pictured with Mr Hallyday when he was alive, but she has never commented on the details of their close relationship.
She did not attend Mr Hallyday’s star-studded funeral in Paris, but Mr Lhote wrote: ‘On his tombstone in St Barths, there was a wreath of flowers signed ‘Lady L’.’