"Stolen Kisses", "Moonraker"… The outstanding roles of Michael Lonsdale

Michael Lonsdale in "Moonraker" in 1979 -

• Michael Lonsdale died on Monday.

  He was 89 years old.

• During his career, he appeared in some 200 feature films.

• Among his most notable roles are those he plays in

  Stolen Kisses

  ,

  Moonraker

  and

  Of Men and Gods

  .

Michael Lonsdale passed away on Monday at the age of 89.

During his long career, he appeared in some 200 films, both author and mainstream.

selected five.

"Stolen kisses"

Michael Lonsdale's notoriety took off with his roles at French Truffaut.

In

, in 1967, and most importantly, a year later in

.

He embodies the paranoid Georges Tabard, manager of a shoe store that calls on a detective agency to find out why no one likes him.

Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) therefore leads this curious investigation and ends up falling in love with Georges' wife, Fabienne Tabard, played by Delphine Seyrig.

Michael Lonsdale's appearances in the film are short, but certainly striking.

In 1975, he again shared the bill with Delphine Seyrig, in

by Marguerite Duras.

About the actress, he wrote, in his biography published in 2016: “The person I loved was not free… She was in a relationship with Sami Frey.

I have never tried anything out of respect.

I suffered a lot and I was never able to love someone else… It was her or nothing.

That's why I'm still single at 85.

"

"Hibernatus"

"But if, you have a big head, then you nodded.

In 1969, Michael Lonsdale was Professor Edouard Loriebat in

by Edouard Molinaro.

A film, in which Louis de Funès plays a man found alive and perfectly preserved in a block of ice in Greenland.

He finds himself studied by Professor Loriebat, a specialist in hibernation.

A popular comedy that has left its mark on generations of "Sunday night movies" viewers.

"Moonraker"

Michael Lonsdale wrote his name in the credits of a James Bond.

In

Lewis Gilbert's

, released in 1979, he is Hugo Drax, an American billionaire responsible for building a space shuttle.

A role all the more important since it is that of the main "villain" of the film.

"The name of the rose"

The name of the rose

, released in 1986, is the other film that made Michael Lonsdale known to the general public outside France.

In this adaptation of Umberto Eco's medieval thriller, he plays the abbot asking that the suspicious deaths of monks in an abbey in northern Italy be clarified, even if it means resorting to the Inquisition.

" Men and gods "

Michael Lonsdale found the religious cloakroom in

, Xavier Beauvois' film released in 2010, awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival the same year.

With this feature film, freely inspired by the assassination of the monks of Tibhirine in 1996, he landed at 79 the first - and last - Caesar of his long career.

In this case that of the best actor in a supporting role.

Beyond the quality of his performance, remember that Michael Lonsdale embodies a character resonating with his Catholic faith about which he has spoken on multiple occasions.

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• men and gods

• Actor

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• Cinema

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