The latter called Smet 'Johnny' and became a father figure, introducing him to American music. Hallyday grew up with his aunt, Hélène Mar, and took his stage name from a cousin-in-law from Oklahoma (Lemoine Ketcham) who performed as Lee Halliday. Clerc started a modeling career, which left her with little time to care for her son.

Léon Smet, who worked as a nightclub performer, left his wife and son a few months later. Jean-Philippe Smet was born in the 9th arrondissement of Paris on 15 June 1943 to a Belgian father, Léon Smet, and a French mother, Huguette Eugénie Pierrette Clerc. He remained relatively unknown in the English-speaking world, where he was dubbed 'the biggest rock star you've never heard of' and introduced as the French version of Elvis Presley. His death from cancer in 2017 was followed by a 'popular tribute' during which a million people attended the procession and 15 million others watched the ceremony on TV. More than 2,500 magazine covers and 190 books were dedicated to him during his lifetime, making him one of the people most widely covered by the media in France. He was a symbol of the Trente Glorieuses when he emerged in 1960 and a familiar figure to four generations. Hugely popular in France, he was referred to as simply 'Johnny' and seen as a 'national monument' and a part of the French cultural legacy. Usually working with the best French artists and musicians of his time, he collaborated with Charles Aznavour, Michel Berger and Jean-Jacques Goldman. A million spectators gathered to see his performance at the Eiffel Tower, with some 10 million watching on television. Among his 3,257 shows completed in 187 tours, the most memorable were at Parc des Princes in 1993, at the Stade de France in 1998, just after France's win in the 1998 FIFA World Cup, as well as at the Eiffel Tower in 2000, which had record-breaking ticket sales for a French artist. Credited for his strong voice and his spectacular shows, he sometimes arrived by entering a stadium through the crowd and once by jumping from a helicopter above the Stade de France, where he performed 9 times.

He sang an estimated 1,154 songs and performed 540 duets with 187 artists. He had five diamond albums, 40 gold albums, 22 platinum albums and earned ten Victoires de la Musique. ĭuring a career spanning 57 years, he released 79 albums and sold more than 110 million records worldwide, mainly in the French-speaking world, making him one of the best-selling artists in the world. Jean-Philippe Léo Smet ( French pronunciation: 15 June 1943 – 5 December 2017), better known by his stage name Johnny Hallyday, was a French rock and roll and pop singer and actor, credited with having brought rock and roll to France.

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