Arthur

Jacques Essebag (born 10 March 1966), better known by his stage name Arthur, is a French television presenter, producer and comedian.

Jacques Essebag was born on 10 March 1966 in Casablanca.

His father, Michel Essebag, was a chartered accountant and his mother a housewife.

He has a brother Olivier.

Like many Moroccan Jews, his parents left Morocco in 1967, during the Six-Day War and settled in the Paris region, in Massy.

After high school, he began studying law at Sceaux, at the Faculty of Law Jean Monnet of the University of Paris-Sud 11.

While he repeated his first year, he made his debut radio broadcast, on the local radio station Massy-Pal, on which he hosted the show Tonus which provided sports scores for the city.

After dropping from law studies, he began his career as a host on local radio in the Paris region in the late 1980s.

In 1987, he became a presenter on RFM.

He took the pseudonym of Arthur To distinguish from a homonym.

In 1988, he spent a short time on Kiss Fm, then joined Skyrock in 1989.

With Skyman, he created Les zigotos du matin.

In the early 1990s, he found a certain notoriety by presenting programs on Fun Radio, Europe 1 and Europe 2 (Arthur et les pirates, PlanetArthur and Radio Arthur).

Since the mid-1990s, he has also been an entrepreneur in the audiovisual field.

Starting in 1991, he became the host of television programs, first on France 2 and TF1 (Les Enfants de la télé, La Fureur).

In 1991, he joined Fun Radio to host programs from 6:30 am–9:00 am, in which he created games such as the provocative Orgasmotron (simulation of a live female orgasm).

His notoriety grew when, thanks to a publicity campaign for his program in which he presented himself as "the greatest cunt of the FM band".

On Fun, he met Emmanuel Lévy, aka Maître Lévy, who became his director and accompanied him in his TV career.

He left Fun Radio the following season in 1992 to join Europe 1, which wanted to rejuvenate its audience.

There he hosted for four seasons Arthur et les pirates, between 4.30 pm-6.00 pm, with Maître Levy, Alexandre Devois (Captain Sboob), Princess Jade (met on Skyrock), Rémy Caccia and Michèle Bernier.

He hosted the same games as he did on Fun.

During the first season, the show took place among the audience.

He alleged, in effect, that Cauet had previously made a joke about Nazi concentration camps in 1995 and therefore refused to work on the same radio.

In September 1996, he returned on Europe 2 to host La Matinale from 8 am to 9:30 am, then from 7:30 am to 9 am from 1997.

The show was recorded a series of sketches with false listeners.

The humoristic team was composed of Maître Levy, Gad Elmaleh, Axelle Laffont, Tex, Gus (Gustave de Kervern of Groland), François Meunier (JC of Skyrock) and Philippe Lelièvre.

At the beginning of 2000, Arthur left Europe 2 and hosted PlanetArthur on Fun Radio, every afternoon from 4.00 pm to 6.30 pm, alongside Maître Levy, Myriam, Valérie Benaïm and Cyril Hanouna.

When Sébastien Cauet arrived on Fun Radio in September 2004, Arthur wanted to leave the radio and contacted his lawyers.

In November 2004, a court broke the contract with Fun Radio for the benefit of the radio, but not allow damages.

His first show was the world record of running of a radio show (33 consecutive hours, from 25 November 2004, 4:00 pm, to 26 November, 1:00 am).

This record was later beaten by Cauet on Fun Radio.

This program, entitled 33 heures chrono, was produced as DVD and adapted in a series of programs on MCM.

Meanwhile, he started a theatrical career with two one-man shows, Arthur en vrai (2005) and I Show (2009) and portraying Peter Brochan in Le Dîner de Cons (2007), alongside Dany Boon.

Fun Radio did not accept to let him go, arguing that the contract ended on 30 June 2005 and forced him to continue to host PlanèteArthur, in September 2004.

Arthur then made three programs entitled Libérez Arthur, in which he explicitly asked to be released from his contract, particularly in disseminating support messages from his friends from show business and did some parodies of the station Director, played by Jonathan Lambert.

On 9 September, Fun Radio stopped the broadcast.

He was, until 2006, vice president of the French subsidiary of production company Endemol.

In October 2007, Arthur and Cauet finally reconciled : Cauet attended a performance of Le Diner de Cons, then Arthur participated in La Méthode Cauet, on 20 December 2007, then Cauet was invited to the evening of Christmas Eve, on 31 December 2007, hosted by Arthur.

A few months later, he moved to Europe 2 on which he hosted Arthur et les Pirates between 4.00 pm and 6.00 pm, with Maître Levy, Princesse Jade and Jonathan Lambert.

Since 2008, he has been the owner of Ouï FM.