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Dutch collector card in the 'Filmsterren: een Portret' series by Edito-Service S.A., 1994, no. D5 024 30-18. Photo: Kippa-Interpress. Robert de Niro in The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978).

Legendary American actor Robert De Niro (1943) has starred in such classic films as Taxi Driver (1976), Novecento/1900 (1978), The Deer Hunter (1978), Awakenings (1990) and GoodFellas (1990). His role in The Godfather: Part II (1974) brought him his first Academy Award, and he scored his second Oscar for his portrayal of Jake La Motta in Raging Bull (1980). De Niro worked with many acclaimed film directors, including Brian DePalma, Francis Coppola, Elia Kazan, Bernardo Bertolucci and, most importantly, Martin Scorsese. He also appeared in French, British and Italian films.

Robert Anthony De Niro was born in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan, New York City in 1943. His mother, Virginia Admiral, was a cerebral and gifted painter, and his father, Robert De Niro Sr., was a painter, sculptor and poet whose work received high critical acclaim. They split ways in 1945 when young Robert was only 2 years old after his father announced that he was gay. De Niro was raised primarily by his mother, who took on work as a typesetter and printer to support her son. A bright and energetic child, Robert De Niro was incredibly fond of attending films with his father when they spent time together. De Niro's mother worked part-time as a typist and copyeditor for Maria Piscator's Dramatic Workshop, and as part of her compensation, De Niro was allowed to take children's acting classes for free. At the age of 10, De Niro made his stage debut as the Cowardly Lion in a school production of The Wizard of Oz. De Niro proved to be uninterested in school altogether and, as a teenager, joined a rather tame street gang in Little Italy that gave him the nickname Bobby Milk, about his pale complexion. While De Niro was by all accounts only a very modest troublemaker, the gang provided him with the experience to skilfully portray Italian mobsters as an actor. He left school at age 16 to study acting at Stella Adler Conservatory. Adler, who had taught Marlon Brando and Rod Steiger, was a strong proponent of the Stanislavski method of acting, involving deep psychological character investigation. He studied briefly with Lee Strasberg at the Actor's Studio in New York City and then began auditioning. After a momentary cameo in the French film Trois chambres à Manhattan/Three Rooms in Manhattan (Marcel Carné, 1965), De Niro's real film debut came in Greetings (Brian De Palma, 1968). However, De Niro's first film role already came at the age of 20, when he appeared credited as Robert Denero in De Palma’s The Wedding Party (Brian De Palma, Wilford Leach, 1963), but the film was not released until 1969. He then appeared in Roger Corman's film Bloody Mama (1970), featuring Shelley Winters. His breakthrough performances came a few years later in two highly acclaimed films: the sports drama Bang the Drum Slowly (John D. Hancock, 1973), in which he played a terminally ill catcher on a baseball team, and the crime film Mean Streets (1973), his first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorsese, in which he played street thug Johnny Boy opposite Harvey Keitel.

Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese worked successfully together on eight films: Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), and Casino (1995). In 1974, De Niro established himself as one of America’s finest actors with his Academy Award-winning portrayal of the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974), a role for which he learned to speak Sicilian. Two years later, De Niro delivered perhaps the most chilling performance of his career, playing vengeful cabbie Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) alongside Jodie Foster. His iconic performance as Travis Bickle catapulted him to stardom and forever linked his name with Bickle's famous "You talkin' to me?" monologue, which De Niro largely improvised. In Italy, De Niro appeared opposite Gérard Dépardieu in the epic historical drama Novecento/1900 (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976). The film is an exploration of life in Italy in the first half of the 20th century, seen through the eyes of two Italian childhood friends on opposite sides of society's hierarchy. He also starred in The Last Tycoon (1976), the last film directed by Elia Kazan. The Hollywood drama is based upon Harold Pinter's screenplay adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon, De Niro continued to show his tremendous skill as a dramatic actor in the Vietnam war drama The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978). The film follows a group of friends haunted by their Vietnam experiences. De Niro later portrayed middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta in the commercially unsuccessful but critically adored film Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980). The previously skinny De Niro had put on 60 pounds of muscle for his riveting turn as LaMotta and was rewarded for his dedication with the 1981 Academy Award for Best Actor.

In the 1980s, Robert De Niro's first roles were as a worldly ambitious Catholic priest in True Confessions (Ulu Grosbard, 1981), an aspiring stand-up comedian in Scorsese's The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1983), and a Jewish mobster in the sprawling historical epic Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984). Other notable projects included the Sci-Fi art film Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985) and the British drama The Mission (Roland Joffé, 1986), about the experiences of a Jesuit missionary in 18th century South America, which won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. It was followed by fare like the crime drama The Untouchables (Brian De Palma, 1987), in which De Niro portrayed gangster Al Capone opposite Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness, the mysterious thriller Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987), and the action-comedy Midnight Run (Martin Brest, 1988). De Niro opened the 1990s with Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990), yet another acclaimed gangster film from Scorsese that saw the actor teaming up with Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci. De Niro next starred in a project that earned him another Oscar nomination, portraying a catatonic patient brought back to awareness in Awakenings (Penny Marshall, 1990), co-starring Robin Williams as a character based on physician Oliver Sacks. Dramas continued to be the genre of choice for De Niro, as he played a blacklisted director in Guilty by Suspicion (Irwin Winkler, 1991) and a fire chief in Backdraft (Ron Howard, 1991). Soon afterwards, the actor was once again front and centre and terrifyingly reunited with Scorsese, bulking up to become a tattooed rapist who stalks a family in Cape Fear (Martin Scorsese, 1991). The film was a remake of the 1962 thriller starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. Peck and Mitchum made appearances in the remake as well. De Niro received his sixth Academy Award nomination for Fear, with the film becoming the highest-grossing collaboration between the actor and Scorsese, earning more than $182 million worldwide. After somewhat edgy, comedic outings like Night and the City (1992) and Mad Dog and Glory (1993), another drama followed in the form of This Boy's Life (Michael Caton-Jones, 1993), in which De Niro portrayed the abusive stepfather of a young Leonardo DiCaprio. That same year, De Niro made his directorial debut with A Bronx Tale (Robert De Niro, 1993), a film adaptation of a one-man play written and performed by Chazz Palminteri. In 1994, De Niro was practically unrecognizable as the monster in actor/director Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of the Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh, 1994). It was followed by another Scorsese telling of mob life, this time in Las Vegas. De Niro portrayed a character based on real-life figure Frank ‘Lefty’ Rosenthal in Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995), co-starring Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci. In Heat (Michael Mann, 1995), De Niro re-teamed with fellow Godfather star Al Pacino in a well-received outing about a bank robber contemplating getting out of the business and the police detective aiming to bring him down.

For the rest of the 1990s and into the new millennium, Robert De Niro was featured yearly in a big-screen project as either a lead or supporting figure. His films include the legal crime drama Sleepers (Barry Levinson, 1996), the black comedy Wag the Dog (Barry Levinson, 1997), the crime drama Cop Land (James Mangold, 1997), the crime thriller Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997), the spy action-thriller Ronin (John Frankenheimer, 1998) and the crime comedy-drama Flawless (Joel Schumacher, 1999). At the turn of the century, De Niro struck out into decidedly different territory with Analyze This (Harold Ramis, 1999), a hilarious and highly popular spoof of the mob movies that had garnered him fame. Analyze This earned more than $100 million domestically, with De Niro playing a Mafioso who seeks help from a psychiatrist (Billy Crystal). De Niro took on another comedy, Meet the Parents (Jay Roach, 2000), as Ben Stiller's future father-in-law. The smash hit spawned two sequels: Meet the Fockers (Jay Roach, 2004) and Little Fockers (Paul Weitz, 2011), both of which were also box-office successes. De Niro continued to switch between comedic and serious roles over the next few years, reuniting with Billy Crystal for Analyze That (Harold Ramis, 2002), and starring in the spy thriller The Good Shepherd (Robert De Niro, 2006) with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. The following year De Niro was featured as a secretive cross-dressing pirate with a heart of gold in the fantasy flick Stardust (Matthew Vaughn, 2007), while 2009 saw a return to dramatic fare with Everybody's Fine (Kirk Jones, 2009). In Italy, De Niro starred in the romantic comedy Manuale d'amore 3/The Ages of Love (Giovanni Veronesi, 2011). De Niro earned yet another Academy Award nomination for his turn in David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook (2012), playing the father of a mentally troubled son (Bradley Cooper). De Niro teamed up again with Silver Linings Playbook director Russell and stars Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence for the biopic Joy (David O. Russell, 2015), based on the life of Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano. Later that year, De Niro starred as a widower who returns to the workforce in The Intern (Nancy Meyers, 2015), with Anne Hathaway. In 2016, he starred in another biopic, Hands of Stone (Jonathan Jakubowicz, 2016), playing Ray Arcel, the trainer of Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán. That same year De Niro received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama for his contribution to the arts. De Niro, who has long resided in New York City, has been investing in Manhattan's Tribeca neighbourhood since 1989. His capital ventures there included co-founding the film studio TriBeCa Productions in 1998 and the Tribeca Film Festival (since 2002). De Niro married actress Diahnne Abbott in 1976. The couple had one son, Raphael, before divorcing 12 years later, in 1988. De Niro then had a long relationship with model Toukie Smith who produced twin sons, Aaron Kendrick and Julian Henry, in 1995. Then in 1997, De Niro married Grace Hightower, with whom he has two children.

Sources: Biography.com, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch collector card in the 'Filmsterren: een Portret' series by Edito-Service S.A., 1994, no. D5 024 16-05. Photo: Collection Christophe L. Jean Marais in Fantômas (Bernard Borderie, 1964).

With his heroic physique, Jean Marais (1913-1998) was France’s answer to Errol Flynn, the epitome of the swashbuckling romantic hero of French cinema. The blonde and incredibly good-looking actor played over 100 roles in film and on television and was also known as a director, writer, painter and sculptor. His mentor was the legendary poet and director Jean Cocteau, also his lover.

Jean-Alfred Villain-Marais was born in 1913 in Cherbourg, France. He endured a turbulent childhood. When he was born, on the eve of World War I, his mother refused to see him. Her only daughter had died a few days before. When Marais' father returned from the war, the five-year-old Jean didn't remember him, and his father slapped him. His mother promptly packed her three children off to their grandmother's, and Jean grew up fatherless. He attended the Lycee Condorcet, a prestigious private school, where some of his future film partners also studied, such as Louis de Funes and Jean Cocteau, and the faculty had such figures as Jean-Paul Sartre. At 13, Marais had to leave the Lycee Condorcet, after gamingly flirting in drag with a teacher. He was placed in a Catholic boarding school, but at 16, he left school and became involved in amateur acting. As a child, he dreamed of becoming an actor but was twice rejected when he applied to drama schools. He took a job as a photographer's assistant and had acting classes with Charles Dullin. In 1933 Marcel L'Herbier gave him a bit part in L’Épervier/The Casting Net (1933) starring Charles Boyer. This was followed by more small parts in films by L’Herbier, in L'Aventurier/The Adventurer (1934), Le Bonheur/Happiness (1935), Les Hommes nouveaux/The New Men (1936), and Nuits de feu/The Living Corpse (1936). Marais also appeared in Abus de confiance/Abused Confidence (Henri Decoin, 1937), and Drôle de drame/Bizarre, Bizarre (Marcel Carné, 1937).

In 1937, Jean Marais, then 24, met Jean Cocteau at a stage rehearsal of Oedipe-Roi/King Oedipus. They fell in love and would remain close friends until Cocteau died in 1963. Cocteau became his surrogate father, and he was Cocteau's surrogate son. Cocteau had a major influence on Marais’ career. In 1938 he cast him as Galahad in the stage play 'Les Chevaliers de La Table Ronde' (The Knights of the Round Table), and wrote the film L'Éternel retour with him in mind. With L’Éternal retour/The Eternal Return (Jean Delannoy, 1943), Marais made his big break in the cinema. This was the turning point in his life and the start of a film career which was to span nearly sixty years. In the following years, he appeared in almost every one of Cocteau's films: La Belle et la bête/Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, Jean Delannoy, 1946), L'Aigle à deux têtes/The Eagle Has Two Heads (Jean Cocteau, 1947), Les Parents terribles/The Storm Within (Jean Cocteau, 1948), and Orphée/Orpheus (Jean Cocteau, 1950). After the Allies liberated Paris in August 1944, he joined France's Second Armored Division and served as a truck driver carrying fuel and ammunition to the front. Later he was decorated with the Croix de Guerre for his courage. During the war, Marais was engaged to his film partner, actress Mila Parély, and their engagement was blessed by Cocteau, who wanted Marais to be happy. Marais and Mila Parély separated after two years, and shortly after they worked together again in La Belle et la bête/Beauty and the Beast (1946). His double role as the beast and the prince in this classic film made Marais an international teen idol.

During the 1950s, Jean Marais became a dashing sword master, dazzling his audiences with impressive French swashbuckling adventures, in which he performed his own stunts. Le Comte de Monte Cristo/The Count of Monte Cristo (Robert Vernay, 1955), Le Bossu/The Hunchback of Paris (André Hunebelle, 1959), and Le Capitaine Fracasse/Captain Fracasse (Pierre Gaspard-Huit, 1961) all enjoyed great box office popularity in France. Marais would become one of the most admired and celebrated actors of his generation and star in international productions directed by Jean Renoir (Elena et les hommes/Elena and Her Men, 1956), Luchino Visconti (Le Notti bianche/White Nights, 1957), Cocteau (Le testament d'Orphée/The Testament of Orpheus, 1959), and others. During the 1960s and 1970s, he went on to appear in such popular adventure comedies as the Fantômas (1964-1967, André Hunebelle) trilogy, co-starring with Louis de Funes and Mylène Demongeot.

Jean Marais was equally impressive in the theatre, appearing in such plays as 'Britannicus,' 'Pygmalion' and 'Cher Menteur' at the Théâtre de Paris, Théâtre de l'Atelier, and the Comédie Francaise. He spent his later years living in his house in Vallauris, in the South of France where he was involved in painting, sculpture and pottery, and was visited by Pablo Picasso and other cultural figures. His monument Le passe muraille/The Walker Through Walls, honouring French author Marcel Aymé, can be seen in the Montmartre Quarter in Paris. After a long retirement, Jean Marais returned to filmmaking in the mid-1980s with choice character roles in such films as Parking (Jacques Demy, 1985). In 1993 he was awarded an honourable César. Marais made his final film appearance in Bernardo Bertolucci's Io ballo da sola/Stealing Beauty (1996) starring Liv Tyler. That year he received France's highest tribute, the Legion of Honour for his contribution to the French cinema. Jean Marais died of heart failure in 1998, in Cannes. He had an adopted son, Serge Marais.

Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, French Films, Lenin Imports, and IMDb.

For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch collector card in the 'Filmsterren: een Portret' series by Edito-Service S.A., 1998, no. DC 024 63-17. Photo: A. Pélé / Stills.

American actor Jon Voight (1938) became a star playing the street hustler Joe Buck in the groundbreaking film Midnight Cowboy (1969). He had a successful career taking on challenging leading and character roles in a wide range of films and television shows. Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie and actor James Haven.

Jonathan Vincent Voight was born in 1938 in Yonkers, New York. His father was Elmer Voytka, later Voight, a professional golfer, and his mother was Barbara Voight-Kamp. His eldest brother Barry Voight, a volcanologist, was a geology professor at Penn State University. His younger brother is songwriter Wes Voight who, under the alias Chip Taylor, wrote The Troggs' 1966 smash hit 'Wild Thing'. Jon attended Archbishop Stepinac High School, an all-boy school in White Plains, NY. Voight began acting while in high school and earned in 1960 a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He moved to New York City and studied (1960–1964) under Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. Voight made his Broadway debut in 1961 in the role of Rolf in The Sound of Music. He continued working in theatre through most of the 1960s and in addition began making guest appearances on such television shows as Naked City, The Defenders, Coronet Blue, and Gunsmoke. Voight's film debut did not come until 1967 when he played the title role in the low-budget crimefighter spoof Fearless Frank (Phillip Kaufman, 1967). Voight also took a small role in the Western, Hour of the Gun (John Sturges, 1967), and a role in Out of It (Paul Williams, 1968). Then he was cast in the Academy Award winner Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969) opposite Dustin Hoffman. He garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his performance. Voight appeared in Mike Nichols’s war comedy Catch-22 (1970) and starred as an angry young man in The Revolutionary (Paul Williams, 1970). He delivered a memorable performance as a city businessman forced to fight for his life in Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972), and he portrayed the writer Pat Conroy in the film memoir Conrack (Martin Ritt, 1974). Voight followed a lead role in the conventional thriller The Odessa File (Ronald Neame, 1974) with a moving portrayal of a paralysed Vietnam War veteran in the drama Coming Home (Hal Ashby, 1978) opposite Jane Fonda. It earned him Golden Globe and Oscar awards for best actor; the Cannes Festival also named him best actor for the role. He starred in the sports melodrama The Champ (Franco Zeffirelli, 1979) with Ricky Schroder.

John Voight's output became sparse during the 1980s and early 1990s, although he won the Golden Globe and earned another Oscar nomination for best actor for his turn as an escaped convict in the thriller Runaway Train (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1985), opposite Eric Roberts. Voight made a comeback in Hollywood during the mid-1990s. He played Captain Woodrow Call in the TV miniseries Return to Lonesome Dove (Mike Robe, 1993) and starred opposite Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Michael Mann's crime epic Heat (1995). He played Jim Phelps opposite Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996), a murderous government bureaucrat in Enemy of the State (Tony Scott, 1998), and the father of the title character (played by his real-life daughter, Angelina Jolie) in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Simon West, 2001). His unscrupulous attorney Leo F. Drummond in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker (1997), earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Voight received a supporting actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of legendary sports broadcaster Howard Cosell in the biopic Ali (Michael Mann, 2001). His later films included the fantasy Holes (Andrew Davis, 2003) and the adventure films National Treasure (Jon Turteltaub, 2004) and Transformers (Michael Bay, 2007). He appeared as the gruff father of an art dealer who befriends a homeless man in Same Kind of Different As Me (Michael Carney, 2017), which was based on the best-selling memoir of the same name. His recent film credits include Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (David Yates, 2016) and the family drama Orphan Horse (Sean McNamara, 2018). Voight also played the title character's father in the TV series Ray Donovan (2013– ), for which he received Emmy Award nominations in 2014 and 2016. Jon Voight was previously married to Marcheline Bertrand and Lauri Peters. Both marriages ended in divorce. With Marcheline Bertrand, he has a son, James Haven Voight (1973) and a daughter Angelina Jolie Voight, aka Angelina Jolie (1975). On 21 November 2019, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Donald Trump.

Sources: Patricia Bauer (Encyclopaedia Britannica), Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch collectors card in the series 'Filmsterren: een Portret' by Edito Service, 1992. Photo: Collection Christophe L. Michel Blanc..

On Thursday evening, 3 October 2024, French film star, writer and director Michel Blanc (1952-2024) died after a severe allergic shock during a medical examination. Blanc suffered a heart attack and died that evening in a Paris hospital. Blanch was best known for French films Les Bronzés/French Fried Vacation (1978) and Monsieur Hire (1989). With his trademark bald head and moustache, he brought a comic quality to even his saddest characters including losers and hypochondriacs. He was 72.

Michel Jean François Blanc was born in 1952 in Coubevoie, France. Michel was the only son of Marcel and Jeanine Blanc. He was born with a heart murmur and the boy was pampered by his parents to the point of becoming a hypochondriac. He spent his childhood in the working-class suburb of Puteaux in a damp and unventilated two-room kitchen bungalow. In 1963, Michel Blanc entered the Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly-sur-Seine, along with his friend Gérard Jugnot. There he met his future acting partners: Christian Clavier, Thierry Lhermitte and Marie-Anne Chazel. At school, he acted in plays and student films by Gérard Jugnot. Blanc studied piano and orchestra conducting and one of his passions was classical music. When he failed to make the grade at the piano, he co-founded the Le Splendid troupe, along with Thierry Lhermitte, Josiane Balasko, Christian Clavier, Marie-Anne Chazel and Gérard Jugnot. There he successfully performed café-theatre sketches and plays they had written themselves, such as 'Bunny's Bar'. During the 1970s, he had a string of minor film roles alongside his theatre work. He played a secondary role in the comedy Vous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine/You Won't Have Alsace-Lorraine (Coluche, Marc Monnet, 1977). In 1978, he had his breakthrough as Jean-Claude Dusse in the comedy Les Bronzés/French Fried Vacation (Patrice Leconte, 1978) adapted from the play 'Amours, coquillages et crustacés' created and performed by the Le Splendid troupe. Les Bronzés is a comedy about holidaymakers trying to escape their everyday problems and looking for romance at a holiday resort in Ivory Coast. Blanc's character, Jean-Claude Dusse, is an awkward bachelor and bad harmonica player, with an orange belt in karate, who hopes to seduce women but can't pull it off. He reunited with the troupe for other cinematic successes: Les bronzés font du ski/French Fried Vacation 2 (Patrice Leconte, 1979) and (voice only) Le père Noël est une ordure/Santa Claus Is a Stinker (Jean-Marie Poiré, 1982).

After Les Bronzés and the sequels, Michel Blanc feared that he would be typecast as a grumpy hypochondriac or clumsy flirt forever. He went behind the camera to direct the comedy Marche à l'ombre/Walking in the Shade (Michel Blanc, 1984) starring Gérard Lanvin, which, thanks to his sense of dialogue and the contrasting duets, became the biggest box-office success of the year, with 6.1 million spectators. He was the first to leave the Le Splendid troupe. Blanc branched out into serious film roles, theatre, screenwriting and directing. He confirmed this career change by playing a homosexual in the dark comedy Tenue de soirée/Evening Dress (Bertrand Blier, 1986), with Gérard Depardieu and Miou-Miou. In 1986, he won the Best Actor award for his role. His serious work also included the acclaimed and haunting thriller Monsieur Hire/Mister Hire (Patrice Leconte, 1989) with Sandrine Bonnaire, based on a novel by Georges Simenon. He ended the decade playing a communist purifier in Claude Berri's historical satire Uranus (1990), in which he reunited with Gérard Depardieu and collaborated with Jean-Pierre Marielle. He wrote and directed three critically acclaimed feature films: Marche à l'ombre (1984, nominated for a César for Best First Feature Film in 1985), Grosse fatigue/Dead Tired (1994, nominated for a César for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation in 1995) and Mauvaise passe/The Escort (1999) starring Daniel Auteuil.

Michel Blanc had public success with the dramatic comedy Je vous trouve très beau/You Are So Beautiful (Isabelle Mergault, 2005), in which he played a widowed and embittered farmer in search of love. The following year, the actor rejoined the Le Splendid troupe to bring their cult trilogy to a successful conclusion (over ten million admissions) with Les Bronzés 3: Amis pour la vie/French Fried Vacation 3: Friends Forever (Patrice Leconte, 2006). After an acclaimed performance in the AIDS drama Les Témoins/The Witnesses (André Téchiné, 2008) with Sami Bouajila, Michel Blanc won the César for Best Supporting Actor in 2012 for L'Exercice de l'État/The Minister (Pierre Schoeller, 2011). At the same time, he wrote and directed a diptych featuring an ensemble cast with Karin Viard, Carole Bouquet and Charlotte Rampling: Embrassez qui vous voudrez/Summer Things (2002, nominated for a César for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation 2003) and Voyez comme on danse/Kiss & Tell (2018) He is one of the few people to have won awards at the Cannes Film Festival in both a creative and performing role, winning the Male Acting Prize in 1986 and the Best Screenplay Prize in 1994. Media sometimes called him a "sad clown" but Blanc said the description missed the mark. "I'm not a sad clown at all, I'm a worried clown", he told French culture magazine Telerama: "And who isn't worried? What is the human condition? It is not knowing why we are here, and not knowing how we will die". Michel Blanc died in the arms of his partner. Ramatoulaye Diop, with whom he had lived for some fifteen years. "He made us cry with laughter, and moved us to tears," President Emmanuel Macron said of Blanc, calling him "a monument of French cinema."

Sources: Catherine Balle (Le Parisien - French), Le Monde, Les Gens du Cinéma (French), Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch collectors card in the series 'Filmsterren: een Portret' by Edito Service, 1993. Photo: Collection Christophe L. Michel Blanc and Sandrine Bonnaire in Monsieur Hire/Mister Hire (Patrice Leconte, 1989).

On Thursday evening, 3 October 2024, French film star, writer and director Michel Blanc (1952-2024) died after a severe allergic shock during a medical examination. Blanc suffered a heart attack and died that evening in a Paris hospital. Blanch was best known for French films Les Bronzés/French Fried Vacation (1978) and Monsieur Hire (1989). With his trademark bald head and moustache, he brought a comic quality to even his saddest characters including losers and hypochondriacs. He was 72.

Michel Jean François Blanc was born in 1952 in Coubevoie, France. Michel was the only son of Marcel and Jeanine Blanc. He was born with a heart murmur and the boy was pampered by his parents to the point of becoming a hypochondriac. He spent his childhood in the working-class suburb of Puteaux in a damp and unventilated two-room kitchen bungalow. In 1963, Michel Blanc entered the Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly-sur-Seine, along with his friend Gérard Jugnot. There he met his future acting partners: Christian Clavier, Thierry Lhermitte and Marie-Anne Chazel. At school, he acted in plays and student films by Gérard Jugnot. Blanc studied piano and orchestra conducting and one of his passions was classical music. When he failed to make the grade at the piano, he co-founded the Le Splendid troupe, along with Thierry Lhermitte, Josiane Balasko, Christian Clavier, Marie-Anne Chazel and Gérard Jugnot. There he successfully performed café-theatre sketches and plays they had written themselves, such as 'Bunny's Bar'. During the 1970s, he had a string of minor film roles alongside his theatre work. He played a secondary role in the comedy Vous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine/You Won't Have Alsace-Lorraine (Coluche, Marc Monnet, 1977). In 1978, he had his breakthrough as Jean-Claude Dusse in the comedy Les Bronzés/French Fried Vacation (Patrice Leconte, 1978) adapted from the play 'Amours, coquillages et crustacés' created and performed by the Le Splendid troupe. Les Bronzés is a comedy about holidaymakers trying to escape their everyday problems and looking for romance at a holiday resort in Ivory Coast. Blanc's character, Jean-Claude Dusse, is an awkward bachelor and bad harmonica player, with an orange belt in karate, who hopes to seduce women but can't pull it off. He reunited with the troupe for other cinematic successes: Les bronzés font du ski/French Fried Vacation 2 (Patrice Leconte, 1979) and (voice only) Le père Noël est une ordure/Santa Claus Is a Stinker (Jean-Marie Poiré, 1982).

After Les Bronzés and the sequels, Michel Blanc feared that he would be typecast as a grumpy hypochondriac or clumsy flirt forever. He went behind the camera to direct the comedy Marche à l'ombre/Walking in the Shade (Michel Blanc, 1984) starring Gérard Lanvin, which, thanks to his sense of dialogue and the contrasting duets, became the biggest box-office success of the year, with 6.1 million spectators. He was the first to leave the Le Splendid troupe. Blanc branched out into serious film roles, theatre, screenwriting and directing. He confirmed this career change by playing a homosexual in the dark comedy Tenue de soirée/Evening Dress (Bertrand Blier, 1986), with Gérard Depardieu and Miou-Miou. In 1986, he won the Best Actor award for his role. His serious work also included the acclaimed and haunting thriller Monsieur Hire/Mister Hire (Patrice Leconte, 1989) with Sandrine Bonnaire, based on a novel by Georges Simenon. He ended the decade playing a communist purifier in Claude Berri's historical satire Uranus (1990), in which he reunited with Gérard Depardieu and collaborated with Jean-Pierre Marielle. He wrote and directed three critically acclaimed feature films: Marche à l'ombre (1984, nominated for a César for Best First Feature Film in 1985), Grosse fatigue/Dead Tired (1994, nominated for a César for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation in 1995) and Mauvaise passe/The Escort (1999) starring Daniel Auteuil.

Michel Blanc had public success with the dramatic comedy Je vous trouve très beau/You Are So Beautiful (Isabelle Mergault, 2005), in which he played a widowed and embittered farmer in search of love. The following year, the actor rejoined the Le Splendid troupe to bring their cult trilogy to a successful conclusion (over ten million admissions) with Les Bronzés 3: Amis pour la vie/French Fried Vacation 3: Friends Forever (Patrice Leconte, 2006). After an acclaimed performance in the AIDS drama Les Témoins/The Witnesses (André Téchiné, 2008) with Sami Bouajila, Michel Blanc won the César for Best Supporting Actor in 2012 for L'Exercice de l'État/The Minister (Pierre Schoeller, 2011). At the same time, he wrote and directed a diptych featuring an ensemble cast with Karin Viard, Carole Bouquet and Charlotte Rampling: Embrassez qui vous voudrez/Summer Things (2002, nominated for a César for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation 2003) and Voyez comme on danse/Kiss & Tell (2018) He is one of the few people to have won awards at the Cannes Film Festival in both a creative and performing role, winning the Male Acting Prize in 1986 and the Best Screenplay Prize in 1994. Media sometimes called him a "sad clown" but Blanc said the description missed the mark. "I'm not a sad clown at all, I'm a worried clown", he told French culture magazine Telerama: "And who isn't worried? What is the human condition? It is not knowing why we are here, and not knowing how we will die". Michel Blanc died in the arms of his partner. Ramatoulaye Diop, with whom he had lived for some fifteen years. "He made us cry with laughter, and moved us to tears," President Emmanuel Macron said of Blanc, calling him "a monument of French cinema."

Sources: Catherine Balle (Le Parisien - French), Le Monde, Les Gens du Cinéma (French), Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch collectors card by Edito Service S.A. in the 'Filmsterren: een Portret' series, 1993, no. D5 024 62 09. Photo: The Kobal Collection. Warren Beatty in McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971).

Warren Beatty (1937) is an American film actor, director, producer and the younger brother of Shirley MacLaine. Immediately after his debut in Splendor in the Grass (1961), he was Hollywood's most promising 'Jeune premier'. He had his breakthrough with Bonnie and Clyde (1967) opposite Faye Dunaway. Later, he made such hit films as Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978), but his most lauded film is Reds (1981). Beatty is the only person to be nominated for four Oscars (Best Picture, Directing, Lead Actor & Screenplay) in the same year in two times. First for Heaven Can Wait (1978), and later for Reds (1981).

Warren Beatty was born Henry Warren Beaty in 1937, in Richmond, Virginia, U.S. His mother, Kathlyn Corinne (née MacLean), was a teacher from Nova Scotia. His father, Ira Owens Beaty, studied for a PhD in educational psychology and was a teacher and school administrator, in addition to working in real estate. His older sister is actress Shirley MacLaine, Beatty played football in high school but was more interested in theatre, encouraged to act by the success of his sister, who established herself as a Hollywood star. He attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, for one year before moving to New York City, where he studied with acting coach Stella Adler. He occasionally appeared onstage and from 1957 on television as well. In 1959 he earned a recurring role in the television series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis but left the show before the first season ended to make his only Broadway appearance, in William Inge's 'A Loss of Roses' (1959). Beatty received a Tony Award nomination for his Broadway debut. He then made a strong screen debut as a tortured teenager in love in Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961) opposite Natalie Wood. The film was a major critical and box office success and Beatty was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and received the award for New Star of the Year – Actor. The film was also nominated for two Oscars, winning one. His next films were Tennessee Williams' The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (Jose Quintero, 1961), with Vivien Leigh and Lotte Lenya, All Fall Down (John Frankenheimer, 1962), with Angela Lansbury, Lilith (Robert Rossen, 1963), with Jean Seberg and Promise Her Anything (Arthur Hiller, 1964), with Leslie Caron. Although interesting efforts, these films were mostly financial disappointments.

Taking command of his career, Warren Beatty formed a production company, Tatira, in 1965. Beatty assigned himself the duties of star and producer for Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967), the story of Great Depression-era bank robbers Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow. When he made his deal with Warner Bros. for Bonnie and Clyde, the studio had such little faith in the future box-office results from the $2.5-million production that it agreed to give the film's star and first-time producer 40% of the box-office gross. The deal worked out quite well for Beatty. Counterculture audiences of the 1960s identified with the film’s outlaw heroes, thanks largely to Beatty’s performance, which was filled with much compassion for Barrow and the poor in America. Beatty had worked before with Penn on Mickey One (Arthur Penn, 1965). Bonnie and Clyde received much attention for the artfully rendered climactic shoot-out, which set new standards for screen violence. It became a colossal hit and a milestone in cinema history. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Beatty). Between 1967 and 1973 when the film played in theatres, it generated over $70 million worldwide at the box office, netting Beatty an estimated $28 million. Never one to rush into projects, Beatty acted in only four films in the next seven years. From 1967 to 1974, he lived off-and-on with British actress Julie Christie. He co-starred with her in Robert Altman’s revisionist Western McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971). He also played the lead in Alan J. Pakula’s paranoid thriller The Parallax View (1974). His next big hit was Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975) with Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn and Lee Grant. Britannica describes the film as "a comic sex romp, flavoured with a left-wing sensibility". Beatty plays a womanising hairdresser who finds it impossible to juggle all his lovers on the eve of Pres. Richard Nixon’s election in 1968. Beatty starred in the film, produced, and wrote it with Robert Towne. Shampoo was nominated for four Academy Awards. Even more successful was Heaven Can Wait (Warren Beatty, Buck Henry, 1978) again with Julie Christie. It was a showcase vehicle for Beatty’s comedic talents. Beatty was nominated for Academy Awards in four separate categories (Best Actor, Best Picture [as producer], Adapted Screenplay, and Best Direction), an unprecedented achievement in Hollywood history and an achievement he was to repeat with his next film.

Reds (Warren Beatty, 1981) was the film that established Warren Beatty as a serious filmmaker. The historical epic about American Communist journalist John Reed who observed the Russian October Revolution of 1917 received Oscar nominations in all the major categories and won Beatty an Oscar for Best Director. He did not direct again for nine years when he chose as his next vehicle a star-studded adaptation of the comic strip Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty, 1990). The film, co-starring Al Pacino and Madonna, received positive reviews and was one of the highest-grossing films of the year. His notable films of the 1990s include Bugsy (Barry Levinson, 1991), about the infamous gangster, and Love Affair (Glenn Gordon Caron, 1994), both costarring Annette Bening, whom Beatty married in 1992. In 1998 he co-wrote, directed, and starred in Bulworth, playing a U.S. senator whose disillusionment with the political system is fueled by his immersion in hip-hop culture. Despite the accolades he received, Beatty was also part of two of Hollywood’s most expensive failures, Ishtar (Elaine May, 1987) and Town & Country (Peter Chelsom, 2001). After a 15-year absence, he returned to the big screen with Rules Don’t Apply (Warren Beatty, 2016), about the relationship between an aspiring actress and her driver, both of whom work for Howard Hughes. In addition to starring as the eccentric millionaire, Beatty also wrote and directed the romance. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences granted Beatty the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for his body of work in 2000, and he was a 2004 Kennedy Center Honor recipient. In 2008 Beatty received a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute. Warren Beatty and Annette Bening have four children: Kathlyn (b. 1992), Benjamin (1994), Isabel (1997) and Ella (2000). Daughter Kathlyn transitioned to male at the age of 14 and changed her name to Stephen Ira Beatty.

Sources: Britannica, Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch collectors card by Edito Service S.A. in the 'Filmsterren: een Portret' series, 1993, no. D5 024 62 09. Photo: A. Pelé / Stills. Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967)

Warren Beatty (1937) is an American film actor, director, producer and the younger brother of Shirley MacLaine. Immediately after his debut in Splendor in the Grass (1961), he was Hollywood's most promising 'Jeune premier'. He had his breakthrough with Bonnie and Clyde (1967) opposite Faye Dunaway. Later, he made such hit films as Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978), but his most lauded film is Reds (1981). Beatty is the only person to be nominated for four Oscars (Best Picture, Directing, Lead Actor & Screenplay) in the same year in two times. First for Heaven Can Wait (1978), and later for Reds (1981).

Warren Beatty was born Henry Warren Beaty in 1937, in Richmond, Virginia, U.S. His mother, Kathlyn Corinne (née MacLean), was a teacher from Nova Scotia. His father, Ira Owens Beaty, studied for a PhD in educational psychology and was a teacher and school administrator, in addition to working in real estate. His older sister is actress Shirley MacLaine, Beatty played football in high school but was more interested in theatre, encouraged to act by the success of his sister, who established herself as a Hollywood star. He attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, for one year before moving to New York City, where he studied with acting coach Stella Adler. He occasionally appeared onstage and from 1957 on television as well. In 1959 he earned a recurring role in the television series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis but left the show before the first season ended to make his only Broadway appearance, in William Inge's 'A Loss of Roses' (1959). Beatty received a Tony Award nomination for his Broadway debut. He then made a strong screen debut as a tortured teenager in love in Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan, 1961) opposite Natalie Wood. The film was a major critical and box office success and Beatty was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and received the award for New Star of the Year – Actor. The film was also nominated for two Oscars, winning one. His next films were Tennessee Williams' The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (Jose Quintero, 1961), with Vivien Leigh and Lotte Lenya, All Fall Down (John Frankenheimer, 1962), with Angela Lansbury, Lilith (Robert Rossen, 1963), with Jean Seberg and Promise Her Anything (Arthur Hiller, 1964), with Leslie Caron. Although interesting efforts, these films were mostly financial disappointments.

Taking command of his career, Warren Beatty formed a production company, Tatira, in 1965. Beatty assigned himself the duties of star and producer for Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967), the story of Great Depression-era bank robbers Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow. When he made his deal with Warner Bros. for Bonnie and Clyde, the studio had such little faith in the future box-office results from the $2.5-million production that it agreed to give the film's star and first-time producer 40% of the box-office gross. The deal worked out quite well for Beatty. Counterculture audiences of the 1960s identified with the film’s outlaw heroes, thanks largely to Beatty’s performance, which was filled with much compassion for Barrow and the poor in America. Beatty had worked before with Penn on Mickey One (Arthur Penn, 1965). Bonnie and Clyde received much attention for the artfully rendered climactic shoot-out, which set new standards for screen violence. It became a colossal hit and a milestone in cinema history. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Beatty). Between 1967-1973 when the film played in theatres, it generated over $70 million worldwide at the box office, netting Beatty an estimated $28 million. Never one to rush into projects, Beatty acted in only four films in the next seven years. From 1967 to 1974, he lived off-and-on with British actress Julie Christie. He co-starred with her in Robert Altman’s revisionist Western McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971). He also played the lead in Alan J. Pakula’s paranoid thriller The Parallax View (1974). His next big hit was Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975) with Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn and Lee Grant. Britannica describes the film as "a comic sex romp, flavoured with a left-wing sensibility". Beatty plays a womanising hairdresser who finds it impossible to juggle all his lovers on the eve of Pres. Richard Nixon’s election in 1968. Beatty starred in the film, produced, and wrote it with Robert Towne. Shampoo was nominated for four Academy Awards. Even more successful was Heaven Can Wait (Warren Beatty, Buck Henry, 1978) again with Julie Christie. It was a showcase vehicle for Beatty’s comedic talents. Beatty was nominated for Academy Awards in four separate categories (Best Actor, Best Picture [as producer], Adapted Screenplay, and Best Direction), an unprecedented achievement in Hollywood history and an achievement he was to repeat with his next film.

Reds (Warren Beatty, 1981) was the film that established Warren Beatty as a serious filmmaker. The historical epic about American Communist journalist John Reed who observed the Russian October Revolution of 1917 received Oscar nominations in all the major categories and won Beatty an Oscar for Best Director. He did not direct again for nine years when he chose as his next vehicle a star-studded adaptation of the comic strip Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty, 1990). The film, co-starring Al Pacino and Madonna, received positive reviews and was one of the highest-grossing films of the year. His notable films of the 1990s include Bugsy (Barry Levinson, 1991), about the infamous gangster, and Love Affair (Glenn Gordon Caron, 1994), both costarring Annette Bening, whom Beatty married in 1992. In 1998 he co-wrote, directed, and starred in Bulworth, playing a U.S. senator whose disillusionment with the political system is fueled by his immersion in hip-hop culture. Despite the accolades he received, Beatty was also part of two of Hollywood’s most expensive failures, Ishtar (Elaine May, 1987) and Town & Country (Peter Chelsom, 2001). After a 15-year absence, he returned to the big screen with Rules Don’t Apply (Warren Beatty, 2016), about the relationship between an aspiring actress and her driver, both of whom work for Howard Hughes. In addition to starring as the eccentric millionaire, Beatty also wrote and directed the romance. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences granted Beatty the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for his body of work in 2000, and he was a 2004 Kennedy Center Honor recipient. In 2008 Beatty received a lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute. Warren Beatty and Annette Bening have four children: Kathlyn (b. 1992), Benjamin (1994), Isabel (1997) and Ella (2000). Daughter Kathlyn transitioned to male at the age of 14 and changed her name to Stephen Ira Beatty.

Sources: Britannica, Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch collectors card in the "Filmsterren: een Portret" by Edito-Service S.A, 1995, no. D5 024-52-09. Photo: Delande / Stills. Rupert Everett in Another Country (Marek Kanievska, 1984).

British actor Rupert Everett (1959) grew up in privileged circumstances, but the wry, sometimes arrogant intellectual was a rebel from the very beginning. He had his breakthrough in Another Country (1984) as an openly gay student at an English public school in the 1930s. He has since appeared in many other films including The Comfort of Strangers (1990), My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) and An Ideal Husband (1999).

Rupert James Hector Everett was born in Burnham Deepdale, Great Britain to Major Anthony Michael Everett and his wife Sara née Maclean. He has a brother, Simon Anthony Cunningham Everett. Everett was brought up as a Roman Catholic. From the age of seven, Everett was educated at Farleigh School, Hampshire, and from the age of thirteen was educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire. At this prestigious Roman Catholic public school. he trained classically on the piano. He dropped out of school at 16 and ran away to London to become an actor. In order to support himself, he worked as a male prostitute for drugs and money. After being dismissed from the Central School of Speech and Drama ((University of London) for clashing with his teachers, he travelled to Scotland and got a job at the avant-garde Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow. Everett's break came in 1981 at the Greenwich Theatre and later West End production of 'Another Country', playing a gay schoolboy opposite Kenneth Branagh. His character, Guy Bennett, is based on the double agent Guy Burgess. The play was filmed, Another Country (Marek Kanievska, 1984) with Cary Elwes and Colin Firth. Brian J. Dillard at AllMovie: “Rupert Everett and Colin Firth give strong, economical performances as the homosexual dandy and the fervent Marxist who, for different reasons, chafe at the restrictions of their society. Both characters are callow and self-absorbed, but Firth's principled thinker and Everett's ambitious romantic undergo subtle transformations that make them ultimately sympathetic.” He followed on with Dance With a Stranger (Mike Newell, 1985), based on the true story of Ruth Ellis (Portrayed by Miranda Richardson), the last woman to be executed in England. In Italy, he starred in the Gabriel Garcia Marquez adaptation Cronaca di una morte annunciata/ Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Francesco Ros, 1987i) with Ornella Muti. Everett began to develop a promising film career until he co-starred with Bob Dylan in the huge flop Hearts of Fire (Richard Marquand, 1987). Around the same time, Everett recorded and released an album of pop songs entitled Generation of Loneliness. Despite being managed by the largely successful pop svengali Simon Napier-Bell (who steered Wham! to international fame), the public didn't take to his change in direction. The shift was short-lived, and he would only return to pop indirectly by providing backing vocals for his friend Madonna on her 1999 cover of 'American Pie' and on the track 'They Can't Take That Away from Me' on Robbie Williams' 'Swing When You're Winning' in 2001. Following this flop, Everett disappeared for a while, taking up residence in Paris and writing a semi-autobiographical novel, 'Hello, Darling, Are You Working?'. He also came out as gay.

Rupert Everett returned to the screen opposite Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren in The Comfort of Strangers (Paul Schrader, 1990). He was successful as the fat and lazy Prince of Wales (the later George IV) in The Madness of King George (Nicholas Hytner, 1994), and appeared among the all star cast of Prêt-à-Porter (Robert Altman, 1994). The Italian comics character Dylan Dog, created by Tiziano Sclavi, is graphically inspired by him. Everett appeared in a film adaptation, Dellamorte Dellamore/Cemetery Man (Michele Soavi, 1994) as a killer of zombies. In 1995 he released a second novel, 'The Hairdressers of St. Tropez'. His film career was revitalized by his award-winning performance in the comedy My Best Friend's Wedding (P.J. Hogan, 1997), playing Julia Roberts's gay friend. Robert Firsching at AllMovie: “Rupert Everett is terrific as Roberts' gay confidant, and there are some surprising scenes, including a woman with her tongue stuck to an ice sculpture in a most untoward location. It was a huge hit at the box office, with enough genuine romance to satisfy purists and enough bite for those with a slightly different attitude.”Everett has since appeared in a number of high-profile film roles, including as Christopher Marlowe in Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998), Lord Arthur Goring in An Ideal Husband (Oliver Parker, 1999) and Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Michael Hoffman, 1999). In 1999, he also played Madonna's best friend in The Next Best Thing (John Schlesinger. 1999), and the villainous Sanford Scolex/Dr. Claw in Disney's Inspector Gadget (David Kellogg, 1999) with Matthew Broderick.

Rupert Everett became a Vanity Fair contributing editor and wrote a film screenplay on playwright Oscar Wilde's final years. He also appeared in another film adaptation of a Wilde play, The Importance of Being Earnest (Oliver Parker, 2002) with Colin Firth. Later roles include his royal portrayals in To Kill a King (Mike Barker, 2003) and Stage Beauty (Richard Eyre, 2004), In 2006, he published a memoir, 'Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins', in which he revealed he had a six-year affair with British television presenter Paula Yates. Since then, Everett lead the 2007 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, played a double role in the film St. Trinian's (Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson, 2007) and the sequel St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson, 2009), and has appeared several times on TV, causing regularly some outrage. In recent years, Everett has returned to his acting roots appearing in several theatre productions; He made his Broadway debut in 2009 in the Noël Coward play 'Blithe Spirit', starring alongside Angela Lansbury. During the summer of 2010, he played in a revival of 'Pygmalion' as Professor Henry Higgins at the Chichester Festival Theatre and reprised this role in 2011, at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End, starring alongside Diana Rigg as Higgins's mother and Kara Tointon as Eliza.

Rupert Everett went on to play Oscar Wilde in 'The Judas Kiss' in 2013 and was about to play George on Broadway in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' when the play closed before it officially opened due to the COVID pandemic in 2020. On TV, he played the effortlessly suave Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (2004), the Marquis de Feron in the British series The Musketeers (2014) and Carroll Quinn in a second British series Adult Material (2020). Known for his aloof handsomeness and often smug, piss-elegant characters, he engagingly portrayed a jet-setter in the contemporary film People (2004); provided the voice of the unprincely Prince Charming in the animated features Shrek 2 (2004) and Shrek de 3e (2007); played a British defector opposite Sharon Stone in the romantic thriller A Different Loyalty (2004) and a millionaire playboy involved in a hit-and-run in Separate Lies (2005). He also has a part in the comedy film Wild Target (Jonathan Lynn, 2010), starring Bill Nighy, and the comedy Hysteria (Tanya Wexler, 2011) about the first vibrator. He appeared as King George VI (father of Queen Elizabeth) opposite Emily Watson's Queen Mum in the romantic dramedy A Royal Night Out (2015). He also played a monsignor in If I Had a Heart (2013); and tortured gay playwright Oscar Wilde during his last days in The Happy Prince (2018), which he wrote and directed. Although Rupert Everett urged in 2009 gay stars not to 'come out' and to keep their sexuality a secret as it could end their film career’, he himself is a living testament disproving the theory that a truly talented and successful romantic leading man cannot survive the career-killing stigma of being openly gay.

Sources: Brian J. Dillard (AllMovie), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch collectors card in the 'Filmsterren: een portret' Series by Edico-Service, no. D5 024 60-11, 1995. Photo: Collection La Cinémathèque française. Michel Piccoli in Dillinger é morto (Marco Ferreri, 1968).

On 12 May 2020, Michel Piccoli, one of the most original and versatile French actors of the last half-century, has died aged 94. He appeared in many different roles, from seducer to cop to a gangster to Pope in more than 200 films and TV films. Among the directors he worked with are Jean Renoir, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Luis Buñuel, and Alfred Hitchcock.

Michel Piccoli was born Jacques Daniel Michel Piccoli in Paris in 1925 to a musical family. His French mother Marcelle was a pianist and his Italian father Henri Piccoli was a violinist, who worked in the cinema. At boarding school, the introverted teenager Michel developed a profound love for the stage. He later studied drama under Andrée Bauer-Thérond and then trained as an actor at the René Simon drama school in Paris. In 1945, he began his stage career with the Renaud-Barrault theatre company at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris. He made his film debut in Sortilèges (Christian-Jaque, 1945), but his first proper film role was in Le Point du jour/The Mark of the Day (Louis Daquin, 1949). He subsequently lent his talents to Jean Renoir in French Cancan (1954) starring Jean Gabin, and René Clair in Les Grandes Manoeuvres/The great manoeuvres (1955) with Gérard Philipe. It took six more years to become ‘box office’ as a film actor with the gangster film Le Doulos/The Finger Man (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1961), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. He then had his international breakthrough with his leading role opposite Brigitte Bardot in Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mépris/Contempt (1963). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “Like Hollywood's Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, and Gary Cooper, Piccoli was possessed of that rare gift of being able to adapt himself to virtually any kind of material without altering his essential screen persona. And like those aforementioned actors, Piccoli's talents suited the prerequisites of a wide variety of directors” He worked with some of the best international film auteurs: Agnès Varda at Les Créatures/The Creatures (1966) opposite Catherine Deneuve, Alain Resnais at La Guerre est finie/The War Is Over (1966), Jacques Demy at Les Demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), and Alfred Hitchcock (Topaz, 1969).

Michel Piccoli starred in four of the best-known films of French director Claude Sautet, Les starting with Choses de la vie/The Little Things in Life (1969) with Romy Schneider. Invariably he was cast as a symbol of bourgeois respectability whose quest for personal fulfilment appears destined to end in failure. James Travers at French Film Guide: “Sautet did more to humanise Piccoli than perhaps any other filmmaker, particularly when the actor was cast alongside Romy Schneider (in Les Choses de la vie and Max et les Ferrailleurs), the actress who became one of Piccoli's dearest friends.” A darker, more disturbing Piccoli can be seen in the films he made for Luis Buñuel, in particular Le Journal d'une femme de chamber/ The Diary of a Chambermaid (1964), Belle de jour/Beauty of the Day (1967) and Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie/The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Piccoli was one of the most visible faces in the European cinema, with films like Les Noces rouges/Wedding in Blood (Claude Chabrol, 1973), Themroc (Claude Faraldo, 1973), La Grande bouffe/The Big Feast (Marco Ferreri, 1973), Atlantic City (Louis Malle, 1980), and Salto nel vuoto/A Leap in the Dark (Marco Bellocchio, 1980), for which he won the Best Actor Award at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. In 1982, he won the Silver Bear at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival for his chilling role in Une étrange affaire/Strange Affair (Pierre Granmier-Deferre, 1981). Both as an actor and as a producer Piccoli supported such young filmmakers as Bertrand Tavernier (Des enfants gates/Spoiled Children, 1977), Jacques Doillon (La Fille prodigue/The Prodigal Daughter, 1981) and Leos Carax (Mauvais sang/Bad Blood, 1986). In 1976, Piccoli recorded his remarkable career on the page when he co-wrote a semi-autobiography, Dialogue Egoistes. He has been married three times, first to actress Éléonore Hirt (1954-?), then for eleven years to the singer Juliette Gréco (1966-1977) and finally, from 1980 on to writer and actress Ludivine Clerc. He has one daughter from his first marriage, Anne-Cordélia.

In the 1980s, Michel Piccoli resumed his stage career, starring in Peter Brook's acclaimed Paris productions of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (1981, 1983) and Patrice Chéreau's staging of Marivaux's La Fausse Suivante (1985). He continued to star in films, such as in Milou en mai/Milou in May (Louis Malle, 1990) for which he was nominated for the César. In 1991, Piccoli again won international acclaim for his portrayal of an artist suffering from a creative block in La belle noiseuse (Jacques Rivette, 1991) with Emmanuelle Béart. Piccoli turned his hand to film directing, starting with a segment for the Amnesty International film Contre l'oubli (1991). His first feature was Alors viola/So There (1997), followed by La Plage noire/The Black Beach (2001) with Dominique Blanc, and C'est pas tout à fait la vie dont j'avais rêvé (2005). Not surprisingly, he was chosen to impersonate Mr. Cinema in Agnès Varda Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma/The One Hundred and One Nights of Simon Cinema (1995). He subsequently continued to do steady work in pictures of varying quality, with highlights being the psychological thriller Généalogies d'une Crime (Raul Ruiz, 1997) with Piccoli as a doctor caught up in a murder mystery, and Je rentre à la maison/ I'm Going Home (Manoel de Oliveira, 2001) with Catherine Deneuve. In 2001 he was the recipient of the Europe Theatre Prize. In 2002, he supported Lionel Jospin's presidential campaign. Piccoli is vocally opposed to the Front National. In 2012, he won the David di Donatello (the Italian Oscar) for his role as the pope in the comedy-drama Habemus Papam/ We Have a Pope (Nanni Moretti, 2012). Since then he made again several films. James Travers at French Film Guide: “There is something utterly seductive about Piccoli's screen portrayals, which comes from the actor's irresistible personal charm and his ability to project, very subtly, the inner neuroses, desires and venality of his characters. No wonder he is so well-loved by critics and audiences, and so eagerly sought after by filmmakers. Indefatigable, talented and generous, Piccoli deserves his reputation as one of the finest actors of his generation.” Michel Piccoli passed away on 12 May 2020 in Saint-Philbert-sur-Risle, France. He was 94.

Sources: James Travers (French Film Guide), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Dutch collectors card in the series 'Filmsterren: een Portret' by Edito Service, 1993. Photo: Collection La Cinémathèque française. Caption: Louis Jouvet, 1936, France. Photo: publicity still for Les bas-fonds/Underground (Jean Renoir, 1936).

Louis Jouvet (1887-1951) was a living glory of the French theatre. He made a huge impact as both a stage director and an actor. His character, his eagle-like profile and his unique way of speaking made him also an unforgettable film star who appeared in some of the masterpieces of the ‘poetical realism’, the Golden Age of the French cinema.

For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.