Actor and director Jacques Perrin dies aged 80

The actor, director and producer, Jacques Perrin in 2019. AFP - GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

French cinema is in mourning this Thursday, April 21 after the announcement of the death of Jacques Perrin.

The actor, director and producer, also a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, died at the age of 80.

Advertisement

Read more

The actor, filmmaker and producer Jacques Perrin, who had played in

Peau d'âne

 or

Le Crabe-tambour

 and directed the documentary

Le peuple migrateur

, died Thursday in Paris at the age of 80, his family announced at the AFP. 

Peroxide blond hair, sailor suit on the back, Jacques Perrin will remain for many the eternal Maxence, dreamy lover in love with Catherine Deneuve in

Les Demoiselles de Rochefort

by Jacques Demy.

He reunited with the actress and the director a few years later, in 1970, in

Peau d'âne

, and this time he played Prince Charming.

Son of a manager and an actress, Jacques Perrin is a child of the ball.

He made his first film at the age of 5:

The Doors of the Night

by Marcel Carné in 1946. He entered the drama conservatory at the age of 17 and very quickly obtained roles in theater and cinema.

His rich career includes collaborations with

Costa Gavras,

Bertrand Tavernier and Pierre Schoendorfer who gives him the role of the naval officer in

Le Crabe-tambour.

Producer and conservationist

He produced films such as

Z

 by Costa-Gavras (1968), which won an Oscar, followed by

State of Siege

 (1972) and

Special Section

 (1974), or

La Victoire en chantant

 (1976) by Jean-Jacques Annaud, before moving on to documentaries devoted to animals and the environment, with the exception of a few films such as the great public success

Les Choristes

 (2004) by Christophe Barratier and its 8.6 million admissions.

Over the years, Jacques Perrin had become a producer and director of animal films.

This discreet humanist then enjoyed success with

Le Peuple migrateur

(2001) which attracted nearly 2.8 million spectators in theaters,

Océans (

2.9 million spectators in 2010

)

and

Microcosmos

for which he had received the César for best producer in 1997.

His very last film role, in

Goliath

, released in March, echoed his environmental struggles.

In this thriller about pesticides, he teams up with a formidable lobbyist from the phytosanitary industry, played by Pierre Niney.

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_EN

  • Movie theater

  • France