There was one face missing from French TV’s coverage of the Olympic Games this summer – that of veteran presenter Michel Drucker.
The 81-year-old was forced to pull out of co-hosting France 2's Quels jeux! talk show, insisting the start time was too late and his doctors had forbidden it.
Drucker underwent a second open-heart operation in 2023, and has since been “obliged to be in bed by 23:00”.
“My priority is my health,” he said. “I can't joke about it. I was so afraid I wouldn't come back.”
Bedridden after the surgery, Drucker was nevertheless determined he would get back to work. He eventually did in August 2023 when he returned for another season of his popular 26-year-old talk show Vivement Dimanche, which looks back over the lives of celebrities from an iconic red sofa.
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Old-school style
The French press have been doing their own retrospective of Drucker’s life for years.
“Michel Drucker: 40 ans de télé,” headlined France 2 as far back as 2004.
Twenty years later, newspapers and magazines are still gently insinuating his time is up, while critics complain his deferential interview style offers nothing new or exciting for viewers, who have heard all his guests’ anecdotes before.
Nevertheless, his longevity and polite interest have earned him scores of celebrity friends, while his long-running shows have provided a comforting reassurance on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons for decades.
How long before it eventually stops?
End of the road?
Drucker himself is clear about how he would like to go.
“I want to die healthy,” he said in 2013. “I don’t want palliative care. I want… one final good show in the bag. If I could be given the ratings before I pass out, even better. And then I am done.”
Michel Drucker was born in Vire, 60 kilometres south of Caen (Calvados), on September 12, 1942 to Abraham Drucker, a Jewish immigrant doctor, and Lola Schafler, a nurse. He has two brothers, Jean and Jacques.
His father ensured that his children got the best education. Both Jean and Jacques were excellent students and graduated from the best schools and universities in the country. Jean became a channel director for France 2 and M6; Jacques an accomplished epidemiologist.
Michel was a different matter.
“My career cannot be understood if you do not consider what happened between the ages of eight and 18,” he once said.
“These 10 years are a black hole. I learned and remembered nothing.”
Frustrated, his father sent him to a psychiatrist who concluded: “Unfit for any intellectual effort. Should find his way in manual jobs.”
Drucker eventually learned how to be a typist, perceived at the time as a “woman’s job”, and took on various other odd jobs.
These years were recounted in his first autobiography, Qu’est-ce qu’on va faire de toi? (What are we going to do with you?), which was published in 2007 and adapted for TV in 2012.
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Sports journalism career
Drucker moved to Paris in the early 1960s and eventually landed a sports journalist job on Sports Dimanche, France’s first TV sports show, before joining ORTF, the former name of state-owned France Télévisions and Radio France.
His breakthrough came via a variety show called Champs-Elysées, which he hosted from 1982 to 1990. He also anchored its return from 2010 to 2013, averaging three to five million viewers per episode.
The show, which featured an impressive list of French and international superstars, is best known for a toe-curling exchange between Whitney Houston and a drunk Serge Gainsbourg on April 5, 1986, in which Gainsbourg insisted “I want to f*** you”.
Drucker did his best to move the conversation on, but “the whole episode remains a nightmare for me”, he said decades later.
Drucker has hosted his other popular show, France 2’s Vivement Dimanche, from 1998 to 2022. It moved to France 3 in August 2022.
At the same time he has fronted various award shows, from the Victoires de la Musique and Césars, to the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006.
Celebrity pals
Along the way he has witnessed the rise of every major French actor and singer, made friends with almost all of them and, increasingly, been asked to provide tributes upon their deaths, such as for singers Claude François in 1978 or Johnny Hallyday in 2017.
“You know, with such a long career, a lot of my friends have passed away,” he said on Hallyday’s passing.
“He was special to me. You could have lived a little longer, Johnny. I know we will see each other one day. Ciao, my friend.”
On another occasion he explained: “When you do a job [like mine] for so long, your garden turns into a cemetery.
“I sometimes get the impression that Serge Gainsbourg and Whitney Houston will show up unexpectedly,” he added.
Drucker was made commandeur of the Legion d’Honneur, the second highest distinction, in 2024, and a knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1984. He has a wax statue at the Grévin museum, Paris’s version of Madame Tussauds.
In August 2023, he announced he would retire from TV by summer 2025. Six months later he had changed up his mind, insisting he will continue until his audience disappears.
What they say about him
“Michel Drucker is a nice guy, so he has lots of friends. His friends are very nice too. They like him a lot, and of course he likes them back. For years, they have been getting together on Sundays, after lunch, on our screens. All they did was tell each other how much they liked each other. So much the worse, or so much the better, if there were millions of witnesses to their effusions.”
Claude Sarraute, journalist at Libération, in a 1980 article about Drucker’s shows.
“He does not remember anything. He is completely amnesiac. He doesn’t even know who Michel Drucker is”
A character in cult French comedy Les Visiteurs obliquely references Drucker’s huge popularity and renown.
"He has a virtue that I call ‘philanthropic narcissism’. The more Drucker likes others and likes them sincerely, the more he likes himself and gets the love of others in return.”
Gérard Miller, psychoanalyst.
