Paris (AFP)

Coming from a long line of comedians, Claude Brasseur was a popular and versatile actor, equally at home in detective films as in comedy, enjoying cinema and television as much as theater.

In 1977, he received the César for best actor in a supporting role for the comedy "An elephant that deceives enormously".

Three years later, he won the César for best actor for "The Police War".

His robust physique of an adventurer, with a dark and lively gaze, has earned him many roles of tough guy, but always with a background of tenderness.

He will also remain associated with the role of Sophie Marceau's father (Vic) in "La boum" and with the vacationer attached to his site in "Camping".

This great fan of motorsport owed part of his celebrity to television where he played, in 1965, Rouletabille in "The mystery of the yellow room" and, in 1971, Vidocq, the convict turned police officer, in the soap opera "Les new adventures of Vidocq ".

"For me, playing is not work. When I play, I feel like I'm going back to the playground where, with my friends, we had fun with the police and the thieves, the cowboys and the Indians . Subsequently, I was emperor, police chief, dentist ... I pray never to go to the theater or to a set with lead soles ", said, in his hoarse voice, the actor to almost 110 films.

- Three years in Algeria -

Claude Espinasse was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine) on June 15, 1936. He was the only son of Pierre Brasseur and Odette Joyeux, illustrious actors who separated shortly after his birth.

Carried by a dynasty of artists dating back to 1820, he took, like his father, his grandmother's name.

In the evening, before going to bed, Claude, godson of the American writer Ernest Hemingway, sees Maria Casarès, Jean Vilar, Louis Jouvet or Jean-Paul Sartre arrive at the house.

However, all was not rosy in his childhood, as he recounts in his autobiography, entitled "Thank you!"

(2014): "I never knew the love of my parents. They are never concerned with me".

After a chaotic education, he was an assistant photographer for the weekly Paris-Match before taking the stage for the first time in 1955, in "Judas" by Marcel Pagnol.

A year later, he plays for the first time for the cinema: "The Country where I come from", by Marcel Carné.

He then served three years as a parachutist in an Algeria at war.

He will regret not having had the political culture sufficient to be a conscientious objector.

On his return, he turns with his father in "Les Yeux sans visage" by Georges Franju, then plays, for television, a striking Sganarelle in "Dom Juan" by Marcel Bluwal.

He works with Jean-Luc Godard ("Bande à part", 1964), Costa-Gavras ("Un homme de trop", 1967) or François Truffaut ("A beautiful girl like me", 1972).

Appearing in the credits of the thrillers "Les Seins de glace" (1974) and "L'agression" (1975), he knows the consecration with "An elephant ..." (1976) and "We will all go to paradise" (1977) by Yves Robert.

- Sport and adventure -

In the 80s, Claude Brasseur will easily alternate cinematographic genres.

We see it in "Guy de Maupassant" or "Les rois du gag" but also in "Légitime violence", "La Crime" or "Descente aux enfers".

The actor, who was directed by the cream of French directors, is then more discreet.

However, he was nominated for the César for Best Actor for his performance as Fouché in "Le Souper" (1992) by Edouard Molinaro, while at the theater, he triumphed in 1993 in "Le dinner de cons" by Francis Veber.

In the cinema, he plays with talent a pied-noir who remained in Algeria after independence in "The Other Side of the Sea", by Dominique Cabrera in 1997, then favors sympathetic supporting roles in popular comedies.

On TV, he distinguished himself in the series "Franck Keller", in 2003.

In 2007, he presided over the Césars ceremony.

In 2015, he was still playing in the theater in "The Wrath of the Tiger".

Bon vivant, accustomed to the Parisian nightclub "Castel", Claude Brasseur had a taste for adventure and sport.

He should have competed in the 1964 Olympic Winter Games in bobsleigh if he hadn't been injured just before.

Crazy about cars, he took part in several Paris-Dakar, which he won in 1983 as co-driver of Jacky Ickx.

He had been married since 1970 to Michèle Cambon, with whom he had had a son, Alexandre Brasseur.

Actor in turn, obviously.

© 2020 AFP