Johnny Hallyday, the French answer to Elvis Presley, who kept audiences enthralled for nearly 60 years with his Gallic interpretations of American rock ’n’ roll and his turbulent offstage life, has died. He was 74.

His wife, Laeticia, said in a statement to the news media on Wednesday that he had died overnight. Mr. Hallyday announced in March that he had lung cancer.

The 1957 Presley film “Loving You” changed French culture forever when it inspired the 14-year-old Jean-Philippe Smet to pick up a guitar, twist his lips into a sneer and swivel his hips. As Johnny Hallyday, he gave French audiences a bad case of rock fever, touching off riots wherever he appeared singing hits like “Tutti Frutti,” “Blue Suede Shoes” and “C’est le Mashed Potatoes.”

Image Above, Mr. Hallyday in 2011. Credit... Ed Alcock for The New York Times

Although he was little known outside the French-speaking world, Mr. Hallyday sold more than 100 million records, acted in more than 30 films and appeared on the cover of the big-circulation magazine Paris Match dozens of times. His career endured so long that when he released an album in 2008 called “Ça Ne Finira Jamais” (“It Will Never End”), the title sounded like a simple statement of fact.