Florence Giorgetti, his first wife with whom he has a son, Frédéric (1969), Evelyne Bouix, whom he has been dating since 1986 and with whom he married in 2010 and raised Salomé Lelouch, daughter of Claude Lelouch and Evelyne Bouix … This is approximately what we know about the sentimental life of Pierre Arditi. The man, however, had another relationship, love at first sight with a famous woman. He evoked this romance to Le Figaro and Nathalie Simon who wrote her autobiography, Born to play, Its truths.
This woman is the singer Barbara. The artist who left us in 1997 at the age of 67, had already been married once, to Claude Sluys. She had also frequented Hubert Ballay and François Wertheimer. It was then that she crossed paths with Pierre Arditi, 14 years her junior.
Amused at having been considered a seducer throughout his life, the actor tells our colleagues that he did not always have confidence in himself: “It makes me laugh to have been considered as such after playing a bunch of deluded men! I never liked my face or my voice because when I was young, I wanted to sound like to Alain Delon. But the theater allowed me to gain a little more confidence, and women gave me the honor and the happiness of finding me from time to time to their liking. It gave me wings.“
Pierre Arditi and Barbara: love at first sight and a secret romance
And his heart beat very hard for Barbara: “I don't talk about it much, but it was a story as brief as it was impactful. I met her at a friend's house, we fell in love with each other and we left together.. She was funny, childish, mysterious, romantic, fatal all at the same time. She didn't sleep because, like me, she felt like it was a waste of time..” And continued: “I called her Lili Bonaparte because she resembled both the mischievous Lili and Bonaparte on the Pont d'Arcole. She liked this nickname but I don't know if Lily Passion, the name she gave to her musical, came from there. When you have the chance to meet a woman like her in your life, it's precious. I never forgot her.“
This story lasted a few months and Pierre Arditi was in his thirties at the time. In his book I was there – published by Éditions Michel Lafon, Pierre Arditi revealed that they had met at the home of a theater costume designer friend. A relationship that remained secret for many years.
