Alain de Greef: the inventor of “TV mates” died – Le Point

When we entered his office, there were these large leather chairs where you literally slumped. There was no way to stay otherwise. Or on the tip of the buttocks, but it was painful. So we gave in to the sweetness of leather armchairs … The Alain de Greef called itself to relaxation. Not at all convenient for business meetings. But great for chatting, everything from nothing. With this style that he had not always finish these sentences, to pursue his idea in his heart, to suggest rather than insist. A shame, my god … And like all timid, he could suddenly say something very intimate, like that in the turn of a phrase. With feigned indifference. He told me he had hardly known his father, the Belgian, who had “a bandit life” …

In his office, there was also this statue the scale of a pin up who stood a sort of Rita Hayworth in busty whose attires bulged décolettée a dress. The pin up of Canal +, she sat there. Permanently. Right next to his desk, like a muse who inspired the Maestro programs.

Alain de Greef, you read everywhere it is – with Pierre Lescure, his great friend – the inventor of a new tone on television. The formula has probably something agreed unless it is true. Most young people do not remember the stiff tone of the emissions of the 1970s De Greef Lescure and tumble into the landscape and revolutionizing the tone on Canal +, we speak the language of pals. There had been little attempt by the Children of Rock Antenne 2 just before. Coluche says “swear words”. Dummies bring this absurd dose and schoolboy humor. Alain de Greef trusts them. The Puppets ringardisent show corny. De Greef assumes. He has broad shoulders. It supports impertinence. Endorses crises. It is their first and best public. . A censor who laughed heartily to excesses

De Greef invents Nowhere else – déconnant ancestor Grand Journal – and infuses this “Canal spirit” derision, guests they are not taken too seriously, the zany chronic Antoine de Caunes and facial expressions of José Garcia with the wise old man, Philippe Gildas, who laughed antics of the youngest.

Fifteen years celebrations fifteen years of excess. We drink too. It is fashionable. And one day, it is not. Meanwhile, Canal + has become a European giant pay television. The Lescure buddy is carried into the downward spiral of the Messier era. On Hollywood dream, talking “cash flow”, “goodwill”, “fusion”, “telephony” … Alain de Greef loses Gildas, abuts Guillaume Durand, Nagui and crashes with Thierry Dugeon.

He captured the spirit of an era. This era was over. He left Canal + in 2001 along Pierre Lescure. The end of the era when banks satimbanques the death knell. By turning off at the age of 68, he joined the exclusive club of the television explorers. He, Alain de Greef, he had found something.