The French pop star Françoise Hardy, who died on Tuesday at the age of 80, was celebrated for her beauty and style, always striking the perfect pose whether she was doing a fashion shoot or had gotten caught in a candid picture. Hardy’s self-possession could be intimidating, but her songs created a sense of intimacy, pulling listeners close by exploring emotional depths, and she earned the love and loyalty of pop aficionados, devoted aesthetes and lonely souls.
In these images we gathered, notice how she sometimes seems to be looking at us, even though we are looking at her. Notice also what is not there, besides any bad angles: no come-hither poses, no inviting décolleté, no exposed gams, and almost no teeth — Hardy’s smiles were of the closed lips, amused kind, not open-mouthed beams. In a photo captured on a motorboat, she’s the only one not wearing a bathing suit as she turns her face to the sun in what looks like serene bliss.
Hardy was no prude and enjoyed fun — she was prone to fits of laughter, her close friend the singer Étienne Daho remembered in a brief eulogy — but she led her life and career while remaining true to herself, on her terms: watching the world with curiosity, artistically exacting, a little aloof and a little curmudgeonly, and always passionate.
Hardy in London, where she did some of her recording, in 1963.Credit…Reporters Associes/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Hardy with Sheila, a fellow pop star, on the French Riviera, circa 1960. Hardy’s first big single was released in 1962.Credit…Reporters Associes/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Hardy and Claude François (center left) congratulate the winners of a twist dance competition in Paris, 1964.Credit…Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Hardy evolved into the kind of performer who unleashed emotion even as she refused to over-emote.Credit…Sam Falk/The New York Times
Hardy at the Savoy Hotel in London, 1965. Jean-Marie Périer, in the background, photographed many of the yé-yé singers (as the rocking and twisting French singers of the era were known).Credit…Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Hardy on the set of the film “Grand Prix” in London, 1966.Credit…Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Hardy performing at the Savoy Hotel in London, 1967.Credit…Keystone/Hulton Archive and Getty Images
Hardy wearing a silver suit by the designer Paco Rabanne in London, 1968.Credit…Evening Standard/Hulton Archive and Getty Images
Credit…Calle Hesslefors/ullstein bild, via Getty Images
Hardy on the streets of London in 1968.Credit…Chris Ware/Keystone Features and Getty Images
Back in Paris, 1969.Credit…Reg Lancaster/Daily Express/Hulton Archive and Getty Images
Hardy, the actress Mireille Darc, and Liza Minnelli in the front row at Yves Saint-Laurent in Paris, 1969.Credit…Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Hardy rehearsing with her early singing teacher Mireille at a recording studio in Paris, 1969.Credit…Yves le Roux/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Hardy and the crooner Tino Rossi signing autographs at a campaign to support medical research in Paris, 1970.Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Hardy at the drums in 1970. Her main instrument was the guitar.Credit…Evening Standard/Hulton Archive and Getty Images
Hardy with the French singer-songwriter Julien Clerc in Lyon, 1974.Credit…Picot/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Hardy appeared on the German TV show “Liedercircus” (“Song Circus”) in 1977. Hardy stopped giving live concerts in the late ’60s.Credit…Impress Own/United Archives, via Getty Images
Hardy on the beach at Cannes, 1974.Credit…Gilbert Giribaldi/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Etienne Daho and Hardy at the French music awards show Victoires De La Musique, in 1986.Credit…Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images
Hardy with Mireille again, at an event in Paris in 1996.Credit…Eric Feferberg/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Hardy with her son, Thomas Dutronc.Credit…Stephane Cardinale/Sygma, via Getty Images
Credit…Jacques Morell/Sygma, via Getty Images
