Pierre Légaré, the wise step boring

Disappointed, Pierre Légaré and Gilbert Dumas consoled themselves that day in front of a hamburger, after a discouraging meeting with the team of a TV show they had designed. Between bites, Pierre says to his friend: “Dumas, compared to worse, we’re having a very good time. ”

Dominic Tardif
Press

If Yvon Deschamps was the sociologist of Quebec laughter, and Sol, its poet, Pierre Légaré was its philosopher. Always on the border between enlightenment and the spirit of a bootie, the comedian knew how to contemplate the existence through the spyglass of a kind of carpe diem, mixed with common sense, which his childhood had instilled in him in the streets. of the Sacré-Cœur district in Iberville, which has since been merged into Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.

“I say all the time he was twisted in his head. He had a way of looking at reality that was different from most of the world, ”Gilbert Dumas confides with great affection. The actor signed the staging of all the shows of his late grand boyfriend, died at 72 years old, on October 5.

Son of a father repairer of furnaces and of a mother who worked hard in the factory (and who is now 98 years old), Pierre Légaré becomes a psychologist less by choice than because he had been refused in law. The eldest of her three children, Manuelle Légaré, recently discovered a folder containing dozens and dozens of texts, including several unpublished, and some recorded on letterhead from the University of Sherbrooke, the alma mater of his father. There were also hiding lyrics to songs from his youth group, Blanc Deuil, in which he sang and played guitar from the age of 15 (example title: Blind date molasses).

Pierre Légaré joins the small team of the popular CKAC show The humor festival in 1980 and leads both careers – school psychologist and comic writer – for several years, even if it means writing from 4 a.m. each morning and fueling instant coffee.

It is the chief scriptwriter of the show, Louise Bureau, who welcomes him and becomes his mentor. “Pierre was a wise man. A wise man who had a sense of humor. Because sometimes the wise are boring. But not him, ”remembers the 85-year-old lady, who will hand over her post to her foal in 1987.

The one who was nicknamed “the mother Bureau” evokes a quartet of actors (Louis-Paul Allard, Roger Joubert, Pierre Labelle and Tex Lecor) with considerable ego. “If the little guys didn’t like a text, they would make a ball and throw it in the back of the room. Me, that shocked me, but Pierre, at that time, looked at me with his small eyes, wanting to say: “Don’t forget that they need us more than we need them. If we’re not there, they don’t have a job. ” ”

“You have to listen”

Pierre Légaré was 40 when he put aside his job as a shrink to try his luck on stage, a “gutsy” gesture, says his daughter Manuelle, taking into account not only his age, but also his relative inexperience. planks. In a room of a community center in Saint-Henri, he rehearses with Gilbert Dumas what will become Search for Légaré, his first show composed of monologues which pierce the curtain of appearances and which mobilize the noggin of his spectators, unlike the salty jokes that he liked to tell on a daily basis, in particular to the concierge of the community center in question.

“The show ended up going on Super Ecran, recalls Dumas, and when we went back there to create his second show – his second therapy, as he liked to say – the concierge who was used to hearing Pierre talk about the big joke comes to see him, very proud to tell him that he had seen his show. Pierre replied: “Worse, what did you think?” The guy replied: “Should you listen, han?” Pierre and I were on the ground because we found it so funny. But yes, he was right. Pierre was addressing the brain. You had to listen. ”

After four shows and a decade of triumph in a comedy industry whose development he greatly contributed to, Pierre Légaré left the road at the start of the millennium, a decision cemented by bladder cancer in 2007.

He allowed himself a brief last lap in 2008, to The Parliaments, a format he had designed.

“In 2007, the doctor gave him for dead”, specifies Manuelle Légaré, but his father had regained full health and will remain active until a few months before succumbing to another cancer, which he had preferred not to attempt to cure. , too well educated about the suffering that treatment would entail. The artist still regularly rode his motorbike, did not subscribe to any social network, did not own a cell phone and declined any media solicitation, although he agreed to offer his lights to the young comedians who joined him.

“I think he’s had enough of being away from home,” says his daughter. He had worked so hard. He didn’t make the decision to back out in a bitter way, but I also think he had a fear of no longer being relevant. He didn’t want to see how influential he had been. He even wanted us to get rid of his personal archives, he saw no value in them. And all of that made me angry sometimes. I kept telling him: “You still have something to say.” But I learned that you have to respect your decision. ”

Slow down the earth

Which of his shows best represents him? Nothing, replies Manuelle Légaré. In this final tour, rewarded with three Olivier and a Felix, Pierre Légaré takes stock of his fears, metaphysical or microscopic, and of his grievances against what he called the herd, an expression he used to designate this instinct. tragically human to follow in the footsteps of whoever yells the loudest.

Around the 50^e minute of this alone on stage, after having stormed a lot, Pierre Légaré pulled himself together. “When it’s all mixed up here,” he says, pointing his head, “that’s what I’m doing. Then the monologist, feet in a cowboy position, engages in a strange movement of the pelvis, as if he were pushing something. Public taken aback. “The Earth turns in that direction. I make it go faster, ”he explains, of course causing hilarity. “And when it’s fun, when I’m good, when I would like it to last longer, I slow it down.” ”

“I find this thing everywhere in his texts: he really had the capacity to seize the present moment,” says Manuelle. He didn’t slip into life, even though he had a very large inner world and it was sometimes difficult for him to take us there. He was so in her head. He was with us, but he was in his head all the time. I can still see his eyebrow rise. He had just observed something, and he had to go and write it down. ”

One morning, while dropping off his daughter at work, Pierre Légaré points to the sky, particularly beautiful: “That, Manu, that will be our sky”, he announces to him. “He had insides like that with everyone. Pierre Légaré ended each of his phone calls by saying the same two words: Take care.