Pierre Sabbagh (18 July 1918 – 30 September 1994) was a major personality in French television, as a journalist, producer and director. Pierre Alain Sabbagh was born in

Lannion Lannion ( ; ) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France. It is a subprefecture of Côtes-d'Armor, the capital of Trégor and the center of an urban area of almost 60,000 inhabitants. Climate Lannion has a ...

(

Côtes-d'Armor The Côtes-d'Armor (, ; ; br, Aodoù-an-Arvor, ), formerly known as Côtes-du-Nord ( br, Aodoù-an-Hanternoz, link=no, ), are a department in the north of Brittany, in northwestern France. In 2019, it had a population of 600,582.

) and died in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He was the younger son of the artist Georges Hanna Sabbagh and the art historian and resistance heroine

Agnès Humbert Agnès Humbert (12 October 1894 – 19 September 1963) was an art historian, ethnographer and a member of the French Resistance during World War II. She has become well known through the publication of a translation of the diary of her experience ...

. His brother was naval officer

Jean Sabbagh Jean Sabbagh (23 January 1917 – 1 October 2006) was a French rear admiral, contre-amiral and advisor to General Charles de Gaulle. Life Jean Charles Sabbagh was born in Paris, the elder son of artist Georges Hanna Sabbagh and art historian an ...

Television

Pierre Sabbagh became a war correspondent in the hope of finding his mother Agnès in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He had visited her in

Fresnes Prison Fresnes Prison ('' French Centre pénitentiaire de Fresnes'') is the second largest prison in France, located in the town of Fresnes, Val-de-Marne, south of Paris. It comprises a large men's prison (''maison d'arrêt'') of about 1200 cells, a smal ...

and the

Prison de la Santé A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correcti ...

in 1942, a few days before she was deported by the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s, sentenced to slave labour in Germany. In 1944, he travelled into Germany behind the advancing American army, but did not find her until he returned to Paris in 1945. Pierre Sabbagh presented and directed the first television news in the world on 29 June 1949. His greatest success was the creation, in 1966, of the programme ''"Au théâtre ce soir"'' ("The Theatre Tonight") following a strike on French television and the success of a Belgian television comedy called ''"La Bonne planque"'', which provoked the appetite of the public for this kind of programme: over 300 plays were produced in the series. To his credit also is the first audiovisual game which reunited France of the 1960s in front of the black-and-white screen: ''"L'Homme du XXe siècle"'' ("20th Century Man"), a game of general cultural questions which went on for many years and which finished with the final ''"Super homme du XXe siècle"'' ("20th Century Superman") which brought together all the previous winners of whom the comedian, Robert Manuel, beat a professor of complementary medicine, Georges Rivault. He was Director-General of the television network

France 2 France 2 () is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4 and France 5. France Télévisions also participates in Arte and Euronews. Since 3:20 CET on 7 ...

between September 1971 and July 1972. His wife was the French television presenter and actress Catherine Langeais.

Publications

*Pierre Sabbagh, Antoine Graziani, ''Fanina'', paperback, Pan Macmillan, 1965 *Pierre Sabbagh, Antoine Graziani (tr. Ellen Hart and Cornelia Brookfield), ''Fanina'', 1966 *Pierre Sabbagh, Antoine Graziani (tr. Marguerite Barnett), ''Fanina, Child of Rome'', hardback, London, Pan Macmillan 1969, (also New York, Bantam, 1968) *Pierre Sabbagh, ''Le guide de la Pipe et du Tabac'', Paris, Stock, 1973 *Pierre Sabbagh, ''Le guide Marabout de la pipe et du tabac'', Paris, Editions Marabout, 1973 *Jean Sabbagh and Pierre Sabbagh, ''Georges Sabbagh'', Paris, J. Sabbagh, 1981 *Pierre Sabbagh, ''Encore vous, Sabbagh!'', Paris, Stock, 1984

Filmography

*''Le second souffle'', 1959, film, actor (directed by

Yannick Bellon Marie-Annick Bellon, usually known as Yannick Bellon, (6 April 1924 – 2 June 2019), was a French film director, editor and screenwriter. Initially known for her documentary work, in 1972 she made her first feature film, ''Quelque part quelqu’ ...

) *''Monsieur Vernet'', 1988, television film, director *''La pomme'', 1991, television film, director *''Le Noir te va bien'', 1991, television film, director *''L'amour fou'', 1991, television film, director

References

*Humbert, Agnès (tr. Barbara Mellor), ''Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France'', London, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2008 (American title: ''Resistance: A Frenchwoman's Journal of the War'', Bloomsbury, USA, 2008) *Sabbagh, Pierre, ''Encore vous, Sabbagh!'', Paris, Stock, 1984

External links

Site de l'INA
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sabbagh, Pierre 1918 births 1994 deaths People from Lannion French male journalists French television journalists French television producers French television directors