Arthur (born Jacques Essebag; 10 March 1966) is a TV presenter, producer and comedian.
After dropping from law studies, he began his career as a host on local radio in the Paris region in the late 1980s. 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). Starting in 1991, he became the host of television programs, first on France 2 and TF1 (Les Enfants de la télé, La Fureur).
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.
Since the mid-1990s, he has also been an entrepreneur in the audiovisual field. He was, until 2006, vice president of the French subsidiary of production company Endemol. Since 2008, he has been the owner of Ouï FM.
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.
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 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.
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. ...
Source: Article "Arthur (TV presenter)" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
