Patrick Bruel

In the 1990s, France knew the pop phenomenon Bruelmania! After rocketing to fame as an actor, the Algerian-born Patrick Bruel (1959) went on to launch a phenomenally successful career on the European music scene. Thanks to his striking good looks and personal charisma, Bruel has become the idol of a whole generation of teenage girls. He made five studio albums and several live albums, and acted in more than 40 different television and film productions. He is also a professional poker player.


French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron. Photo: Richard Berry and Patrick Bruel in L'Union Sacrée/Brothers in Arms (Alexandre Arcady, 1989).


French Postcard, no. S 2.


French Postcard, no. A010.

A million screaming girls

Patrick Bruel was born Patrick Maurice Benguigui in Tlemcen (a town near Oran) in French Algeria (now Algeria), in 1959. He is the son of Pierre Benguigui and Augusta Kammoun. His family became French in 1870 when the Crémieux Decree granted full French citizenship to the indigenous Jews of French Algeria.

After the divorce of his parents, Patrick was brought up by his mother, who worked as a French teacher in a local school. When Algeria won its independence in 1962, Augusta brought her son back to France and the pair settled into a house in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil. Although Bruel aspired to be a soccer star as a youth, he decided to pursue singing after seeing Michel Sardou in 1975.

After obtaining his baccalauréat in 1978, Patrick went on to university. In his summer holidays, he would work at the Club Méditerranée, entertaining holidaymakers as a singer/guitarist. His first success came as an actor, however, in Le Coup de sirocco (Alexandre Arcady, 19798) with Roger Hanin. The film told the story of a Pied Noir family (Algerians of French heritage) who is forced to return to France in 1962 when Algeria became independent. With director Alexandre Arcady Bruel would make several films during the following decades.

Bruel continued to act in films, but also on television and in the theatre, and pursued his singing career. He released his first single, 'Vide' (Empty) in 1981. It was not a success, but two years later the follow-up single, 'Marre de cette nana-là' (1983, Fed up with that chick), was a hit. According to Rfi Music the hit “rocketed him to the forefront of the music screen, transforming him into the idol of a million screaming girl fans almost overnight.”

Although Bruel was cast in serious roles in the theatre, his screen appearances were largely in action films such as Attention bandits!/Bandits (Claude Lelouch, 1986) with Jean Yanne, and La maison assassinée/The Murdered House (Georges Lautner, 1988). In 1989, however, Bruel made his mark on the film world with two excellent performances, starring in Alexandre Arcady’s L’union sacrée/The Sacred Union (1989) and Force Majeure/Uncontrollable Circumstances (Pierre Jolivet, 1989). Bruel's performance in the latter would be highly acclaimed by the critics.


French Postcard, no. REF 511.


French promotion card by Phonogram, no. 14. Photo: G. Schachmes / Sygma.


French Postcard, no. 2016.

Absolute megastar

Patrick Bruel’s second album. 'Alors, regarde' (1989, Now, look) marked a major turning point in the singer's career. After the release of this #1 album in France, Bruel was transformed from a successful singer to an absolute megastar. The first single release, 'Casser la voix' (Breaking the voice) rocketed to the top of the charts, selling a phenomenal amount of copies.

Bruel’s overnight success also owed much to the frenetic ambience of his live concerts. He became also successful abroad, and the album for instance also sold well in the Netherlands.

In 1990, Bruel embarked upon an extensive tour, playing more than 130 dates, both in France and abroad. Later successful albums would be 'Bruel' (1994) and 'Juste avant' (1999, Just before).Among his films and the comedy Les Cent et Une Nuits de Simon Cinéma/One Hundred and One Nights (Agnès Varda, 1995) with Michel Piccoli and Marcello Mastroianni.

Internationally he appeared in such productions as the remake Sabrina (Sydney Pollack, 1995) starring Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond, the American romantic comedy Lost & Found (Jeff Pollack, 1999) starring David Spade and Sophie Marceau and the Spanish thriller El lobo/The Wolf (Miguel Courtois, 2004) starring Eduardo Noriega as a real-life infiltrator of the ETA.

After a phenomenally successful tour throughout the summer of 2000, Bruel hit the road again in the autumn of that year, playing a practically non-stop series of concerts. His hard work reaped major dividends, boosting sales of his album and in December 2000 sales of 'Juste avant' topped 1 million.


French Postcard, no. C 267.


French Postcard, no. CP 169.


French Postcard, Réf. 562.

World-class professional poker player

In 2002, Patrick Bruel released 'Entre Deux' (Between two), a double CD of classic chanson covers that feature duets with legendary chanson stars Charles Aznavour, Alain Souchon and Renaud. It sold two million copies and made Bruel France's best-paid singer of the year.

In 2003, he officially changed his name from Patrick Maurice Benguigui to Patrick Bruel Benguigui, before his partner, the writer and playwright, Amanda Sthers gave birth to his first child, Oscar. In 2004, he wed the 24-year-old Sthers. It was his first marriage. His second child, Léon was born in 2005. The couple separated in 2007.

A few weeks after the tsunami that hit the Southeast Asian coasts on 24 December 2004, Bruel wrote the song 'Et puis la terre'. It was recorded by an ensemble of French artists, and all profits for the song went to the Red Cross. Bruel continued to star in films. L'Ivresse du pouvoir/A Comedy of Power (Claude Chabrol, 2006) is an interesting French drama starring Isabelle Huppert. In the war drama Un secret/A Secret (Claude Miller, 2007), he co-starred with Cécile de France en Ludivine Sagnier. The film was 11 times nominated for a César, the French Oscar. It won only once, for Julie Dépardieu as Best Supporting Actress.

He starred in the romantic comedy Paris-Manhattan (2012), the first feature film by writer-director Sophie Lellouche. Bruel’s album 'Des souvenirs devant' (2006, Memories Before) was his 4th chart topper in France. In addition to acting and singing, Bruel is a world-class professional poker player. He won a World Series of Poker bracelet in 1998 for the $5,000 Limit Hold'em event. He owns the popular French poker forum Wam-Poker and is a shareholder in the online poker room Winamax. He also comments on the World Poker Tour in his home country.

Patrick Bruel lives in Paris, France. He continues to mix the chanson with the cinema. His latest albums are 'Lequel de nous' (2012, Which of Us) and 'Ce soir on sort…' (2018). His later films include is Le prénom/What’s in a name (Alexandre de La Patellière, Matthieu Delaporte, 2012) with Valérie Benguigui, The Writer (Marko Sanginetto, 2013), the Italian drama Una famiglia/A Family (Sebastiano Riso, 2017) and the French comedy-drama Le meilleur reste à venir/The Best Is Yet to Come (Matthieu Delaporte, Alexandre de la Patellière, 2019) with Fabrice Luchini.


British Postcard, no. MM 197.


French trailer for L'Ivresse du pouvoir/A Comedy of Power (2006). Source: Wild Bunch Distribution (YouTube).


Trailer for Paris-Manhattan (2012). Source: Madman Films (YouTube).

Sources: RFI Music (French), Patrick Bruel.com, AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 18 August 2023.