Alain Montpetit

Alain Montpetit (September 24, 1950 – June 10, 1987) was a Canadian actor, radio personality, and television host from Westmount, Quebec. He appeared on Broadway in 1969 in Hadrian VII and went on to become one of Montreal's most prominent media figures of the disco era.

Montpetit was born and raised in Westmount into a family with distinguished professional and academic roots. His grandfather, Édouard Montpetit, founded the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Montreal. His father, André Montpetit, was a prominent labour lawyer who served as a judge of the Quebec Superior Court, chaired the founding board of the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal, and led the Commission of Inquiry into Working Conditions in the Post Office in 1966. Montpetit received his theatrical training at the National Theatre School of Canada and also studied at UCLA.

His time in the United States included work at KMET in Los Angeles and the operation of a pirate radio station near the Canada–United States border. After returning to Montreal in the early 1970s, he joined CKGM as a full-time on-air staffer at the Top 40 AM outlet. He subsequently moved to CKMF-FM, where he hosted a radio program at the beginning of the disco era. Under the station's disco-focused format, its listenership grew from approximately 48,000 to around 500,000. Montpetit was also hired to host a disco dance program on Télé-Métropole, Montreal's private French-language television station, and became widely known as Montreal's "King of Disco." According to his friend and colleague François Roy, Montpetit did not personally enjoy disco music, but he embraced the professional opportunity and accepted payment in cash or drugs from club owners in exchange for appearances at their establishments.

Montpetit was married to classical ballet dancer Nanci Moretti, with whom he had two children. He also maintained a more sustained affair with Paule Charbonneau. In June 1982, Charbonneau's friend Marie-Josée Saint-Antoine, a Montreal model with the Elite agency who had relocated to New York City, visited Quebec and persuaded Charbonneau to end the relationship with Montpetit, conveying that decision to him directly. On June 17, 1982, Saint-Antoine was stabbed to death after returning to New York City. Circumstantial evidence connected Montpetit to the killing, including an alibi he provided to police that was later revealed to be false and a witness account placing a man resembling him with Saint-Antoine shortly before her death. Douglas Coco Leopold, a colleague at CKMF and a prominent disco radio and television personality, publicly accused Montpetit of the murder on air. Montpetit filed a defamation suit against Leopold, and the matter was settled out of court.

In his final years, Montpetit struggled with substance use. In June 1987, he went on air while visibly impaired, as he had done on prior occasions. His station manager encouraged him to seek treatment and assured him his position would be held for him. He was scheduled to enter a rehabilitation program on June 12. On June 9, he traveled to Washington, D.C., and was found dead of an overdose in a hotel room the following day, June 10, 1987. He was 36 years old and was buried at Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal. A fictionalized portrayal of Montpetit, played by Patrick Huard, appears as a central character in the 2010 Canadian film Funkytown.