Karl Zéro

Karl Zéro is the stage name of Marc Tellenne (born August 6, 1961 in Aix-les-Bains, Savoie), is a French writer, actor and filmmaker. Zéro is also a political talk show host/personality (Le Vrai Journal) who has recorded albums of pop standards of the 1940s and 1950s.

Karl Zéro is the youngest son of Gui Tellenne, a civil servant and poet, and Annick Tellenne, an author and talk-show host. He has three brothers: Éric, a writer under the name of Raoul Rabut, Bruno (aka Basile de Koch) and Olivier, a business executive. In the late 1970s Éric, Bruno and Marc founded the satirical comedy troupe Groupe d'Intervention culturelle Jalons. 1979 Zéro met his later wife and mother of their three children Anne-Laure Chaptel (today's stage name: Daisy d'Errata) in the lyceum both were attending. Anne-Laure as well as Bruno’s wife Virginie (Frigide Barjot) later on became members of the Jalons.

Zéro's first publication was a comic entitled The Adventures of Edmond in the magazine Jalons in the early 1980s. Subsequently, he started to work for the publications Métal Hurlant, Charlie Hebdo, Zoulou, and L'Écho des savanes, first as an artist and then as a story writer. At the same time, in 1981, he started working for the trendy magazine Actuel as a journalist specialising in interviewing stars. He also joined the just formed team of Radio Nova, working alongside his future wife, Daisy d’Errata. He then joined Globe and Lui, where his talents as an interviewer attracted notice. For a few months he hosted a comedy radio show on RFM with Antoine de Caunes and Albert Algoud called Babebibou.

In 1986, Karl Zéro was hired by Europe 1 to host their show Géant Gratuit (Free Giant) with Doug Headline (son of Jean-Patrick Manchette). They would be let go after four months. Zéro then returned to TF1 while Doug devoted himself to film. At TF1, Zéro's show Pirates with Jean-Yves Lafesse lasted for only one episode in September 1987. Again, his sense of humour was considered 'inappropriate' and he was let go.

Alain de Greef of Canal+ (a French pay for view TV channel) then offered him the direction of Nulle part ailleurs (Nowhere else) with his old collaborator Antoine de Caunes. He made use of video gags to bring political personalities into his sketches, which often focussed on current events. In 1993 he successfully proposed adding a television news report parody called "Zerorama", "telling events of moral rearmament", in which he used a mode of presentation and tone inspired by newsreels of the Vichy regime under Philippe Pétain in order to satirise Édouard Balladur's government and the media supporting it. Also in 1993, he directed an offbeat film called Le Tronc, in which he appeared alongside Albert Algoud, José Garcia and Lova Moor. ...