The great magician of words has just vanished. Raymond Devos was born in Belgium, in Mouscron, in 1922. At the age of two, his parents settled in Tourcoing, where from school days he became the storyteller of the playground, captivating his little friends. His youth was not a happy one. He lived in the Paris suburbs; his father went bankrupt. At 13, he looked for odd jobs in the Halles market. He was deported to Germany during the war and put on short shows to entertain his fellow captives.
Back in Paris, he took up acting and mime classes and, in 1947, he performed in cabarets and acted in the troupe of Jacques Fabbri.
Very soon, Devos wanted to perform his own texts. A juggler of words, he infused his language with a poetic note. Accompanied by his faithful pianist, he performed on the biggest stages such as Bobino and Olympia. The success was immediate.
In 1964, he was already presenting his greatest hits: “La Mer démontée,” “Le Car pour Caen,” “Les sens interdits,” “Mon chien c’est quelqu’un.” His humor was that of his physique, a benign ogre, always on the brink of failure.
A real athlete, he didn’t hesitate to do trampoline jumps to stay in shape, until the day he fractured his sternum. In each show, the talent of the mime and the musician complemented his speeches with incomparable humor. In life, Devos was also a humorous character. One evening, he performed in Monaco at the congress center in front of Prince Rainier III. We were waiting for him to dine in a restaurant of the Principality, and Raymond Devos arrived an hour and a half late. The Prince of Monaco had kept him to chat. Raymond Devos, embarrassed to have kept us waiting so long, then began to recount his conversation with Rainier while playing both his own role and that of His Highness.
Raymond Devos was above all a true magician of language. He was awarded many times for this, and in 2003, the Raymond Devos Prize for the French Language was created. The first recipient was someone who wielded the French language with undeniable talent, Mohamed Fellag. He declared in front of Raymond Devos and the Minister of Culture, “Man invents the word, the word invents man, the word serves to detect meaning, it is a beacon for the imagination.”
The man for whom imagination was his permanent end is no longer here. Yet he said in his show “Upside Down,” “If my wife is to be a widow one day, I’d rather it be during my lifetime.” Let’s reassure her, Devos is alive because he is eternal.
Article by our friend,
Christian Gallo.
© Le Ficanas ®
