Richard Anthony is a French singer, born 13 January 1938 in Cairo, Egypt, as Ricardo Btesh.
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Richard's father was an industrialist, and his mother was the daughter of an English diplomat. He spent his childhood in Egypt, Argentina and the United Kingdom, then lived in Paris, France where he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly.
In 1958 Richard Anthony decided to adapt English pop music to French lyrics. For Columbia he recorded You Are My Destiny by Paul Anka and Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly, but these two titles passed unnoticed. His third title, "Nouvelle Vague" ("Three Cool Cats") by The Coasters was a huge success. That was followed by a whole series of recordings, both in London and Paris, including the famous Et j'entends siffler le train (500 Miles) in 1962. At that time, Richard Anthony was the only French singer with 21 number one hits.
By 1964, the singer had acquired the trappings of wealth, including a private plane, villas in St. Tropez and Marbella, a hotel in Jamaica, a country house in Chevreuse, a chalet in Crans, motorcycles, cars and several boats. In France in 1965, he had a great success with Je me suis souvent demandé, translated from a Dutch song by Bobbejaan Schoepen, released in Argentina under the title A veces me pregunto yo. In 1968 he adapted Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquín Rodrigo which was a worldwide success, with more than eight million copies sold.
The Seventies were less successful for Anthony. He spent two somewhat unproductive years at Saint-Paul-de-Vence, but had a comeback in 1974 with Amoureux de ma femme. In 1978, he moved to Los Angeles with his second wife Sabine as a producer. His plan was to bring French songs to the American public, and he had a success with Indian Summer, adapted from L'été indien by Joe Dassin.
In 1982, the singer returned to France for a few months, but the French tax authorities caught up with him, and one year later he spent three days in prison.
In the late 1980s, after another divorce and a serious boating accident, he went public. In 1993, he released a box set of 300 songs from EMI, which rapidly became triple gold. In 1996, he took the path of the studios to re-record his hits for France but also Spain with the album Sentimental.
He also wrote his autobiography, published by Michel Laffont. It celebrates 40 years of career in 1998 at the Zenith in Paris before a large enthusiastic audience.
He made a successful comeback in 2006, touring with Age tendre et Têtes de bois (Tender age, wooden heads).
Many artists like Mariah Carey, A-HA, alloy and the Enfoirés covered his songs and adaptations, not to mention dozens of times in the cut version and orchestrated by Richard's Concierto de Aranjuez. He recorded more than 600 titles and sold over 50 million records