Herby Moreau knew everyone and his neighbor in Montreal, but few people really knew him in his private life, when the cameras turned off and the party ended.
Posted at 1:36 a.m.
Updated at 7:15 a.m.
His secret garden, the prince of the red carpets jealously protected it. Among his entourage, only his close guard knew he had been seriously ill for four years. Herby Moreau, 56, suffered from myeloma, a form of blood cancer that affects immune cells in the bone marrow.
He underwent several treatments and operations to slow the progression of the disease, which did not prevent him from going out and attending social events, although at a slower pace than 20 years ago.
The star hunter died in his sleep from complications linked to his cancer. Herby Moreau’s immediate family, however, has not confirmed this information. Several of his close friends were still in shock the day after the news of his sudden death.
“We spoke to each other every week and we wrote to each other several times a week. We always told each other that we loved each other before we left each other. We never forgot,” remembers Odile Morin, a friend of Herby Moreau for 26 years.
“Herby is a family man. Her greatest pride is her son Julien, who had just turned 19,” says actress Julie du Page, who became friends with Herby Moreau in Paris in the early 1990s. aperitif began at Julie’s, rue Princesse, and the party continued in an “in” – and top secret – place that only Herby knew, obviously.
This is probably the image that stuck the most to Herby Moreau, that of the cool and smiling guy, friend of the biggest stars, king of the jet set, connected to the best source, always posted in the right place and always armed of his camera, which he never let go. When the chic Herby showed up at an event, we knew it was the trendiest place of the moment.
In the mid-1990s, Herby roamed Boulevard Saint-Laurent, in the section that was once glamorous between Rue Sherbrooke and Avenue des Pins. The Di Salvio, the Business, the Buonanotte, the Shed Café or the Globe, Herby Moreau and his entourage embodied the effervescence and carefreeness of the nightlife of this smoky, Black Label-soaked era.
He then migrated to Old Montreal, before this area became popular, obviously, and it was impossible to go out to Chuck Hughes’ Garde-Manger or Philémon without meeting him.
And Herby often took the party to his home, on Saint-Paul Street, to his apartment stuffed with photography books, an apartment he sold a few years ago to move to the same building in Griffintown as his ex-partner Sarah, with who shared custody of their son Julien.
As a reporter and host, Herby Moreau injected enormous rigor and energy into his work. In Cannes or Hollywood, he never looked stressed, even in front of the biggest names in showbiz (he met them all and was prepared).
He was a fierce competitor who would stop at nothing to get a breakthrough. He was also a cultured and curious man, who was not only interested in gossip and who opened the way for several members of cultural communities to the Quebec small screen.
And even when he officiated for Star System on TVA with his retro silver microphone, the public still addressed him as the guy from Flash from TQS. The years Flash d’Herby were the most striking. The omnipresent yellow microphone, the crowded red carpets, the feverish live interventions, the selfies with the stars, the daily cultural program of TQS played in the flowerbeds of MusiquePlus and fueled a cultural industry which no longer has at all the same strength today.
This golden age of media premieres and VIP receptions practically no longer exists and Herby Moreau has had difficulty reinventing himself as anything other than a red carpet patroller. What propelled him to the top also locked him in a specific box, from which he was unable to extricate himself.
Away from traditional television, where his attempts at a comeback did not work, Herby Moreau continued to feed his social networks, including his Instagram account. Three weeks ago, he attended the media premiere of Roch Voisine at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts. On October 15, he marked his son’s 19th birthday by publishing a carousel of moving family photos.
Publicly, Herby Moreau has never spoken about his health or his diagnosis. Despite his extroverted personality, Herby remained a mysterious and private man, who had his dark sides. I have been around him often over the last 20 years and I don’t feel like I really knew him.
The adage says that all that glitters is not gold, and that also applies to star chasers, used to shining in the spotlight.
