Charles Bébert, star photographer

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What was your journey to become a photographer?

My father, Albert Sebban, was a photographer in Oran when Algeria was still colonized by France. Everyone nicknamed him “Bébert the photographer.” He was extremely respected and appreciated, so much so that at the end of the 1950s, he delayed the start of a friendly soccer match between the Real Madrid team and a selection of the best players from Orania for a few minutes. 40,000 people were waiting for my father to arrive to take the kickoff photo! He transmitted to me his all-consuming passion for photography, which I have since passed on to one of my sons, Bruno, who also became a photographer. I started after passing my school certificate, at the age of 14. I walked the streets and shot on the spot. From that time, I put Charles Aznavour, Gilbert Bécaud, Richard Anthony and Jacques Brel there, who had come on tour. The latter had even shot a video for local television in my Renault Floride convertible that I was driving, singing in playback thanks to the record player that I had installed in the car!

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When Did You Arrive in Nice?

In 1962, after the independence of Algeria, we embarked with my parents on a boat to Marseille. I only had my Foca camera in my pocket. As my aunt lived in Nice, we came to join her and settled there, starting from scratch. In 1964, I made a loan and opened a shop at 15 rue Dalpozzo, in the city center, called “Chasseur d'images”, which was the exact reconstruction of the one we had with my father in Oran, thanks to my mother who had been able to return to Algeria after the events and bring back some of her furniture and objects. Unfortunately, my father did not acclimatize to this change of life and he died a few years later... Arriving here, I was totally ruined, so I had to photograph weddings, Communions, scenes of life in the street, for example at the famous Canastel ice cream shop in Nice, or even the atmosphere of the Nice Carnival. Thanks to my contacts acquired during my years of work in Algeria, I collaborated with the press and photo agencies such as Reporters Associés, Sipa Press or Flash Press Spain.

What made you want to specialize in celebrity portraits?‍

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Until the 1980s, celebrities were more accessible to press photographers, there were fewer intermediaries. Besides, I quickly get to know people, I am spontaneous. When I started taking photographs of the Monegasque princely family, I let Princess Stéphanie, then a child, take a few shots with my camera for fun, for example. My agency in Spain sold these photos of the princely family very well to the famous magazine ¡Hola! Who loved it, and the Grimaldi family, who were delighted with the quality of my photos, welcomed me back with pleasure. I have photographed them all, on all occasions: Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, Prince Albert... at the Red Cross Gala, the Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival... I also made numerous trips with the Monegasque football team, A.S. Monaco, in immersion with the players for 25 years. Prince Albert II even gave me a team jersey stamped with his name, autographed and signed by himself: ”To Charles Bébert. Thank you for your loyalty to Monaco. Sports friendships, Albert of Monaco.” It is thanks to my hard work, but above all to my loyalty, that I was able to access this extraordinary world. After immortalizing the princely family, for more than 50 years I shot the biggest stars on the French Riviera: Brigitte Bardot, Jean Gabin, Michel Platini, The Beatles, Françoise Hardy, Michael Jackson... published in numerous newspapers and magazines.

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Thanks to the digitization of your archives by your son Stéphane, an artist, your photos have experienced a new boom. Published as a collector's book by Sarah Andelman, co-founder of the Parisian concept store Colette, and exhibited at the Bon Marché Rive Gauche in Paris and then at the Massena Museum in Nice, they retrace the golden age of the Riviera.‍

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I thank Stéphane for this work, because, without him, everything would have gone into oblivion. I am honored by the gift he gave me, I would not have been able to. He listed and classified thousands of negatives and archives that I had thankfully kept, because most of the agencies I worked with at that time closed their doors, taking a large part of my negatives with them. It also revived my shop “Chasseur d'images” in Nice, which had been closed for more than 25 years and which became our office and exhibition space. He also created an Instagram account @charlesbebertphotos, which in particular tells numerous anecdotes under the title “A photo, a story...” It was in fact while browsing this account that Sarah Andelman had the idea to publish my book in February 2024 in 500 copies with, as a preface, an original drawing by the artist Ben. It was sold online, in several bookstores in New York, Tokyo, Berlin, London, Rome, but also at the Bon Marché Rive Gauche in Paris, where the window of my “Image Hunter” store was recreated identically, accompanied by a corner with a corner with some of my photos of Alain Delon, Serge Gainsbourg or Jean-Paul Belmondo, all numbered and signed.

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In the summer of 2021, we also took over the Cours Saleya in Nice, exhibiting more than 130 large-format photos by Jean-Paul Belmondo taken between 1964 and 1984, under the aegis of the Charles Nègre Museum of Photography. I was very moved to review my images of Jean-Paul Belmondo, who had become a friend. He was a very accessible, lively man, and he really liked Nice, where he shot “Tendre Voyou” by Jean Becker or “Happy Easter” by Georges Lautner. We sympathized very quickly, especially because his father had the same origins as mine; he was born in Algiers. When he arrived in the region, he gave me an appointment at the beginning of his stay. We had lunch together, he posed for me and gave me the exclusivity of his photos. He just asked me to broadcast them only after he left to have a quiet family vacation. When he was leaving, he called me to say: “It's okay, you can swing! ”. I sent my photos to the local newspaper, which specified where he was, and all the photographers were running to try to photograph him, but he was already gone! One day, on RTL, in response to a journalist who asked him if he was happy to come to the Cannes Film Festival, he replied: “Yes, especially when I see my friend Bébert!”.

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Among the other celebrities who have been close friends, I would also mention Claude François, whose press secretary I was on the French Riviera for ten years. He was a really nice guy! I remember a record that he dedicated to me: “To my brother, Charles Bébert, who makes me laugh so much!”. When he died in 1978, I obviously refused to photograph him on his deathbed. Paris Match Had offered me 10 million francs... I had many friends among the stars of the time who even came to my house in Nice to visit me: Nicoletta, Jane Manson, Karen Cheryl... I also had a lot of affection for Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. The magazine Vanity Fair has also recently published in color one of my unpublished archives of the couple that I took a photo of in 1972 with their bull terrier Nana, on the pontoon of Neptune Beach, just in front of the Negresco Hotel.

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Your loyalty has been one of your greatest assets in the business...

Indeed, I have never been a paparazzo. It Reminds Me of the Day I met Mick Jagger at Nice Airport with a woman who was not his fiancée... He asked me not to take photos with her, so as not to create confusion. I accepted and asked him in return to photograph him alone. Before he left, I gave him my business card. A few months later, when he married Bianca Perez Morena in Saint-Tropez, I passed my card to his manager, asking him to give it to the singer of The Rolling Stones. I was thus the only French photographer to be authorized to enter the church among 250 colleagues!

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In addition to being loyal, you also had to be lucky... It's a quality in the job! The day I was sent to photograph Maria Callas, expected at Nice airport and known to hit indiscreet photographers, I stayed calm. I was wearing a tuxedo and a bow tie because I was then going to the Red Cross Gala in Monaco. When she arrived, followed by the Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis, she saw me and smiled at me, mistaking me for a tourist, with my Polaroid around my neck. The photo was flawless!

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I also have good memories as a photographer for movie sets, especially at the Victorine Studios. I have a very spontaneous shot of Alain Delon during the shooting of “Melody in the Basement” by Alain Verneuil or of Audrey Hepburn during the shooting of “Voyage à deux”. I shot a lot of great actors, like Romy Schneider, who didn't really like photographers. Seeing the result of one of my images taken at the Cannes Film Festival, she admitted to me that it was one of the most beautiful photos ever taken of her and signed a copy for me!

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In the mid-1960s, and for six years, you even created a daily TV show on Télé Monte-Carlo!‍

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Yes, it was called “What's new on the Coast according to Charles Bébert”. Every day my photos captured on the Riviera were broadcast there, delivered and developed the same day! Small feats before the digital age... At the beginning of this adventure, I put myself at the bottom of the Moyenne Corniche, in Nice, on the road that leads to Monaco, and I called out to the cars that had Monegasque license plates. I then asked the driver to deliver my photos to a person in the channel who was waiting at the entrance to the Principality, so that they would arrive on time! After two months, seeing the success of the program, the channel provided me with a driver who came to Nice every day, around 5 pm, to pick up the envelope. I also did this numerous times at Nice Airport to send my photos to Spain and to get ahead of my competitors. I spotted a nice traveller checking in for a Nice-Madrid flight and gave him my films and explained to him what I wanted to send. Upon arrival, a person from the Spanish press agency, for whom I worked, picked them up from the passenger, and published my photos in record time! In general, I was over 24 hours ahead of all photographers. For Caroline of Monaco's wedding, 18 pages of my color photos were published in the magazine ¡Hola!‍

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And politics?‍

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I shot a lot of Jacques Médecin, Mayor of Nice, whom I followed during his first campaign and with whom I then worked for years. I even became a municipal councillor for five years in the 1990s, during the mandates of Jacques Médecin, Honoré Bailet and Jean-Paul Baréty. I even almost became a deputy! Today, I continue to walk around the soccer stadiums with my camera. Since 2021, I have been offering my photos to the Telethon, to the Stars-Solidaires raffle. In four editions, they raised €80,000 and that makes me very happy! I am always there when I am asked by associations for auctions, such as for Pallia-Aide, or during the sale organized at the Negresco Hotel, for the Frédéric Gaillanne Foundation.

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‍What are your plans?

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‍The “Chaseur d'images, Bébert & fils” gallery is now reopened, and we have tailor-made exhibition packages. Among the current projects, for 2025, there is a second photo book, which will be accompanied by the anecdotes of the shots, on the same principle as what my son Stéphane does on Instagram with “A photo, a story...”. He is also in the process of making, with the artist Mr. Poli, a documentary, “In the eyes of my father”, which tells the story of our family of photographers, the father-son relationship, but also the golden age of the French Riviera in the 1960s and 1970s and the role of silver photography at that time. He interviews “daughters and sons of...” celebrities I have photographed, sharing their impressions of discovering photos of their parents for the first time. He is finally working on a theater show, a variation of the documentary. The adventure continues more than ever!

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Exhibition « Nice d'hier... dans l'objectif de Charles Bébert », until January 20 in the gardens of Villa Masséna and on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

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www.charlesbebert.fr

 www.instagram.com/charlesbebertphotos

Cover picture: Alain Delon, "Mélodie en sous-sol" film, Cannes 1963 - Charles Bébert - “Chasseur d'images” Collection