Impersonator actor Thierry Le Luron died on November 13, 1986. Decades later, the secret of his story has finally been unveiled.
Comedian best known for his imitations of political figuresThierry Le Luron also did a few steps into the world of song and has distinguished himself on several occasions as a radio and television program host. A multi-faceted life reflecting the complexity of his personality. A complexity which, moreover, was also reflected in his death and the way it was told.
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He had not only 34 when he died, yet his short life on Earth was enough to mark generations. Thierry Le Luron officially died of cancer of the respiratory tract on November 13, 1986 in the morning, a few hours after being admitted to a clinic in Boulogne-Billancourt. In any case, this is the version that was communicated when the artist died, a version that was called into question, in 2016, in the book of a close friend of Thierry Le Luron’s family, Virginie of Clausade. According to the latter, it was not at the Boulogne clinic but where he spent the last months of his life that Thierry Le Luron is dead, in suite 443 of the Hôtel de Crillon. In his book titled Of sound and fury and published by Plon editions, Virginie de Clausade specifies that at the time of his death, Thierry Le Luron was in the company of his doctor, Professor Léon Schwartzenberg and two nurses.
He would have died in the night at 4:30 in the morning and, for the sake of discretion and in order to avoid a landing of journalists at the Hôtel de Crillon, was transported by ambulance to the clinic to be declared dead, when in reality he was already dead. This version of the facts corresponds in part with the testimony of Thierry Le Luron’s older sister, Martin Simon-Le Luron. After writing a book about her brother in 2013, the latter gave an interview to Paris Match in which she looks back on her brother’s last hours. Despite her knowledge of her brother’s illness, diagnosed with cancer in September 1984, Martine Simon-Le Luron explains that Thierry’s death took her by surprise. Having seen him two weeks before his death, she said: “That evening, it was impossible to guess that he was seriously affected. I knew afterwards that he had made superhuman efforts in front of us”.
The official cause of death…
A few weeks before his death, Thierry Le Luron left his apartment to have work done there, and moved to the Hôtel de Crillon, which will be his last residence. Weakened and emaciated, the actor went back on stage as many times as possible before being really exhausted by the disease. Despite the indications of the doctors, he refuses to follow a too brutal chemotherapy “in order to continue to live normally, to work“explains his sister to Paris Match. “Above all, he dreaded losing his hair. she adds. The metastasized cancer will end up getting the better of him on the night of November 12 to 13, 1986, the night during which Martine Simon-Le Luron was at the Hôtel de Crillon. However, she will not have no chance to say goodbye.
“The night he died, I was in a room near his bedroom. He didn’t want me to see him, I heard him say, ‘No, no…’ It was very hard for me, but I understood thathe didn’t want anyone to see his bodythat of ‘a sick, emaciated, unrecognizable child’, his doctor told me”. Small consolation, Martine Simon-Le Luron still heard the words “He knows you love him“spoken by a nurse when she came out of her brother’s room. After leaving the hotel in the middle of the night, Martine explains that she received a call at 6am to tell her that it was the end.
…and a more unofficial reason
According to Professor Léon Schwartzenberg, Thierry Le Luron suffered from cancer of the digestive tract, stomach and intestines, all complicated by a mycosis in the mouth. A few years later and in the absence of an effective treatment, it is as a result of cancer of the respiratory tract or vocal cords that the actor died. Only unofficially, another disease has been singled out: the AIDS. Because of this infection, the immunocompromised body of Thierry Le Luron would not have succeeded in resisting the cancer from which he suffered, which would have finished him at only 34 years old. In his book Life is so short after all, published by JC Lattès, Martine Simon-Le Luron confirms. “His doctor informed us of Thierry’s cancer which has spread. I now think AIDS may be the cause.”
More taboo at the time, AIDS was not a disease people communicated about, especially since it was often associated with homosexuality. Although he has always been very reserved about his private lifewe do know, however, that Thierry Le Luron had a relationship with the Argentinian dancer Jorge Lago, who himself died of AIDS in 1985. In his book Of sound and furyVirginie de Clausade also writes that Thierry Le Luron knew he was HIV positive since January 1986. A double illness that got the better of him only a few months after his lover.