Jean-Paul Belmondo, cascading roles for an extraordinary career
Jean-Paul Belmondo at the Cannes Film Festival in 1974 for the presentation of Stavisky, by Alain Resnais.
© AFP
Text by: Christophe Carmarans
21 mins
Died on September 6, 2021 at the age of 88, Jean-Paul Belmondo was for thirty years the most popular French actor, 48 of his films exceeding 1 million admissions.
Returning to the theater at the end of the 1980s and then the victim of a serious health accident in 2001, he had become increasingly rare over the past twenty years.
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Bébel. This nickname alone testified, and with affection, to his immense popularity. In the constellation of French comedians who have burst the screen since the 1950s, Jean-Paul Belmondo was indeed the only one to have been granted a diminutive, a kind of male counterpart of Brigitte Bardot's BB, except that for Bardot it was simply a question of affixing initials. On the day of his disappearance, it is obviously tempting to invoke Bébel's
Itinerary of a Spoiled Child
, as this film, released at a time when the actor was already distancing himself from the cinema, seems to stick to his destiny. For half a century, this fiery and eclectic artist will have illuminated film sets and theater stages with his presence, before a serious health problem takes him away from the spotlight.
Spoiled child, Belmondo was it, being born in Neuilly-sur-Seine within a loving family with a father - Paul Belmondo - renowned sculptor who passed a lot of things to his daredevil son and an artist mother- painter who had time to take care of him, his brother Alain and his sister Muriel. If the family had to suffer from the rigors of the occupation, it then evolved with a certain ease. The turbulent Jean-Paul quickly embarks on comedy lessons, alongside a career as an amateur boxer, he is passionate about sports. Failed to pass the entrance exam to the Conservatory, he still slips in as a free auditor. Finally admitted in 1952, he went to study there for four years, under the dubious eye of the august Pierre Dux, who hardly believed in him.
It was at that time that Belmondo met a group of budding actors of whom he would become the mascot and with whom he formed an unwavering friendship, he who would always be a man of the gang: Jean-Pierre Marielle, Jean Rochefort, Guy Bedos, Bruno Cremer, Michel Beaune. Under the direction of Michel Galabru in particular, he made his stage debut with a predisposition for comedies: Molière, Courteline, Feydeau. Very appreciated by the public and his comrades, he only won an accessit when he left the Conservatory, which prohibited him from entering the Comédie-Française. He then tries his luck at the cinema (
Sois Belle et tais-toi
and
Un Drôle de dimanche
by Marc Allégret in particular), without knowing that he will soon become one of the icons of the New Wave.
Breathless
, precocious glory
Still a critic in the
Cahiers du Cinéma
, Jean-Luc Godard spotted him in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
He tests him in a short film,
Charlotte et son Jules,
before giving him the main role in
Breathless,
the run of a young thug in love with an American student.
Convinced that the film will never be released, Bébel plays more relaxed than ever, imprinting a style that will become his trademark and inspire a whole generation of actors around the world.
Jean-Paul Belmondo talks about his meeting with Jean-Luc Godard
Released in March 1960,
À Bout de souffle
was a huge success, both critical and popular, which is quite rare. From then on, Bébel's career in the cinema was launched: he shot 18 films in three years, some of which have become classics:
Classe all risks
by Claude Sautet,
Moderato Cantabile
by Peter Brook,
Léon Morin priest
and
Le Doulos
by Jean-Pierre Melville ,
A Monkey in Winter
by Henri Verneuil. “
At the beginning, I was so scared that it would stop that I was shooting five, six, seven films a year!
»He confessed to
L'Express
in 2004.
The year 1963, when he has just reached his thirties, is that of consecration. Philippe De Broca, who has already exploited his skills as an acrobat in
Cartouche
(1962), offers him a tailor-made role in
L'Homme de Rio
, a breathless chase deliberately inspired by the character of Tintin which turns out to be a triumph (4, 8 million admissions when it was released in 1964) and was even nominated in Hollywood for the Oscar for best original screenplay. Belmondo then followed up successes with leading directors:
One hundred thousand dollars in the sun
and
Week-end à Zuydcoote
(Henri Verneuil), a last Godard with
Pierrot Le Fou
,
Les
Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine
(De Broca again),
The Thief
(Louis Malle),
Ho!
(Robert Enrico),
Le Cerveau
(Gérard Oury) a duet with Bourvil which remains his biggest success (5.5 million admissions in France) and finally
Un Homme qui mePlease
by Claude Lelouch, with Annie Girardot, to finish the decade .
In "Cartouche", the thief with a big heart, by Philippe de Broca (1962).
Filmsonor / Les Films Ariane / Mondex Films
When the year 1970 arrives, Bébel reigns supreme over French cinema, counting for only rival Alain Delon, an old acquaintance crossed for the first time on the set of
Sois-Belle et tais-toi
in 1958. Bébel- Delon, two sacred monsters that we have often opposed - and who have sometimes bickered - but who, basically, appreciate each other because, without coming from the same background, nor playing on the same registers, the exuberant Bébel and the glacial Delon are of the same caliber. This complicity materializes with
Borsalino
, a film by Jacques Deray and produced by the interpreter of the
Samurai
whose action is located in Marseille in the 1930s. Phenomenal success. Temporarily angry with Delon because he considered himself aggrieved (Delon appears twice as an actor and producer), Belmondo then decides to set up his own production house, Cerito Films, in order to better control his career and to have the elbows more frank.
In the continuity of the 1960s, the success cannot be denied. Bébel continues to monopolize the box office with mainstream films where he always has the beautiful role "
We enter a role as we push a door
" he likes to declare.
The Bride and Groom of Year II
(Jean-Paul Rappeneau),
The Casse
et
Feur sur la Ville
(Henri Verneuil),
La Scoumoune
(José Giovanni),
The Heir
(Philippe Labro),
The Magnificent
(Philippe De Broca)
follow one another.
). The public asks for more, but purists are beginning to regret that he does not risk himself more often in auteur cinema, as he had done in his debut with Malle and Godard. The relative failure of
Stavisky
Alain Resnais (1 million admissions anyway in 1974) hardly encouraged him to question himself and, as the 1980s approached, Bébel gave in a little to the easy way: cop movies and comedies a little too "knock-knock, badaboum!"
Which sometimes turn to self-parody.
Back to the boards
With Alain Resnais on the set of Stavisky in 1974. Collection Positif
If the public is almost always there, criticism appreciates less and Bébel is rarer on the big screen during the 1980s. Following an accident on the set of
Hold-Up
(1985), he stops directing himself. - even his stunts when he had always refused, until then, to be doubled. He is still 52 years old. The year 1987 marked a real turning point: for the first time since 1963 a film starring Belmondo -
Le Solitaire
by Jacques Deray - attracted less than 1 million spectators. “
The Solitaire was too many thrillers. I was fed up and the public too
”he confessed in 2009 to Gilles Durieux who devoted a biography to him. The decade ends in apotheosis with
Itinerary Of A Spoiled Child
, one of the best Lelouch (1988), in a counter-productive role which earned him a César for best actor. As he had warned, Bébel does not come to seek his reward, arguing that the sculptor César, creator of the trophy, would have spoken ill of his father Paul one day.
At the end of the decade, Belmondo made his comeback in the theater, a news that caused a sensation in early 1987. Almost thirty years after his last appearance, he performed in
Kean
a play by Jean-Paul Sartre adapted by Alexandre Dumas and staged staged by Robert Hossein. For five months, the Théâtre Marigny is always full. Three years later, he found Robert Hossein for
Cyrano de Bergerac
. Almost at the same time, Le
Cyrano
by Jean-Paul Rappeneau was released in the cinema with Gérard Depardieu in the lead role. Far from being overshadowed, the two works are successful: ten Caesars for the film, 220,000 spectators in 280 performances for the play, a real tour de force because the actor spends more than three hours on scene.
"
Hossein made Cyrano a leaping, aggressive character, a bit like Errol Flynn
" Belmondo revealed to Bertrand Tessier in his biography
L'Incorrigible
. “
Not a downtime
,” he continued.
It is thanks to all the stunts that I have done in my life and that I have been criticized so much that I can keep up
”. The play is such a success that he agrees to go on tour, which will take him to Japan. The return to cinema is much less triumphant: the “Lelouchienne” version of
Les Misérables
(1995) is a failure, the adaptation of
Désiré
by Sacha Guitry (1996) by Bernard Murat is hardly better and
Maybe
(1999) is undoubtedly the worst film by the talented Cédric Klapisch.
In 2001, Belmondo turned to television for an adaptation of
L'Aîné des Ferchaux
.
Worthy in the face of adversity
With Jean Dujardin, one of his most fervent admirers.
Ocean Movies
After the shooting, he went to rest in Corsica with his friend Guy Bedos when the disaster struck: he collapsed, victim of a cerebrovascular accident (stroke). Urgently hospitalized, his life was saved but had serious after-effects, especially in terms of speech, despite a long rehabilitation. He will courageously try to return to the cinema thanks to Francis Huster in
A Man and his Dog,
(2009), a
remake
of
Umberto D
by Vittorio De Sica, but it will be his only attempt after the accident.
In recent years, Jean-Paul Belmondo had limited his public appearances, still giving a few interviews, including a very long one at
L'Equipe Magazine
in spring 2016. He never felt sorry for his fate. A few months earlier, his eldest son, Paul, a former racing driver, had devoted a documentary to him entitled
Belmondo by Belmondo
broadcast on TF1 on January 3, 2016. In September 2016, Venice made him a triumph at the Mostra by awarding him a Golden Lion for his entire career and, two months later, he published his autobiography A
Thousand Lives Are Better Than One
, a title that suits him perfectly.
Besides Paul born in 1963, Jean-Paul Belmondo had two daughters from his first marriage to Elodie Constant: Patricia born in 1954 and died in 1994 in the fire in her apartment and Florence born in 1960. He had another daughter, Stella, born in 2003, from her second marriage, with the ex-Coco Girl, Nathalie Tardivel. During his life, Bebel also had links with the actresses Ursula Andress in the 1960, Laura Antonelli in the 1970s, Carlos Sotto Mayor in the 1980s and with Babara Gondolfi in the 2000s "
I shared with the ones that I loved were wonderful and unforgettable moments. My last great love is my daughter Stella,
”he confided to the weekly
Téléstar
on the occasion of his 81st birthday.
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