Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, Minister of Culture, shares her emotion after the disappearance of Gérard Filippelli, aka Phil, co-founder of the musical and humorous group Les Charlots.
After a first collaboration with Jean Sarrus and Gérard Rinaldi, in 1966, the three musicians founded the group Les problèmes, embryo of the future Charlots.
Gérard Filippelli then exercised his great talent as a blues rock guitarist alongside Gérard Rinaldi, Jean Sarrus, Luis Rego, Jean-Guy Fechner and Donald Rieubon. The group will be a regular guest in the television programs of Guy Lux or Danièle Gilbert that will ensure a wide audience and a first popular success. The Charlots criss-crossed France in the late 1960s and performed internationally, lending their voice to a French youth in search of freedom. They then mix covers of pre-war songs and notably the repertoire of Boris Vian, as well as original titles, many of which remain symbols of these years (Thank you boss, 1971).
It is this alliance of freshness and freedom that is the ferment of their success in cinema, since the early 1970s. Becoming an actor, screenwriter and then participant in the production, Gérard Filippelli, within the Charlots, will mark the imagination of the French with films like Les Bidasses en folie, The Stadium Madmen or The Great Bazaar. Collaborating with Philippe Clair, Claude Zidi, each of their films garners several million admissions in theaters: the sense of comedy and derision that was theirs has become a part of our film heritage and irrigates, today, the French comedy.
Back to music in the 1980s alongside Jean Sarrus, Luis Régo and Donald Rieubon, Gérard Filippelli will mark the imagination of the French with The Apérobic in 1983.
Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, Minister of Culture, sends his condolences to the family and loved ones of Gérard Filippelli.