- Philippe Noiret
-
Philippe Noiret 
Born 1 October 1930
Lille, Nord, FranceDied 23 November 2006 (aged 76)
Paris, FranceSpouse Monique Chaumette (1927) Philippe Noiret (born 1 October 1930 in Lille – died 23 November 2006 in Paris) was a French film actor.
Contents
Biography
Noiret's father was in the clothes trade. Philippe was an indifferent scholar and attended several prestigious Paris schools, including the Lycée Janson de Sailly. He failed several times to pass his baccalauréat exams, so he decided to study theater. He trained at the Centre Dramatique de l'Ouest and toured with the Théâtre National Populaire for seven years. There, he met Monique Chaumette, whom he married in 1962. During that time he developed a career as a nightclub comedian in a duo act with Jean-Pierre Darras, in which he played Louis XIV in an extravagant wig opposite Darras as the dramatist Jean Racine. In these roles they satirized the politics of Charles de Gaulle, Michel Debré and André Malraux.
Noiret's screen debut (1949) was an uncredited role in Gigi. In 1955 he appeared in La Pointe Courte directed by Agnès Varda. She said later - "I discovered in him a breadth of talent rare in a young actor." Sporting a pudding-basin haircut, Noiret played a lovelorn youth in the southern fishing port of Sète. He later admitted : "I was scared stiff, and fumbled my way through the part - I am totally absent in the film." He was not cast again until 1960 in Zazie dans le métro. After playing second leads in Georges Franju's Thérèse Desqueyroux in 1962, and in Le Capitaine Fracasse, from Théophile Gautier's romantic adventure, he became a regular on the French screen, without being cast in major roles until La Vie de château directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau in 1966. He became a star in France with Yves Robert's Alexandre le Bienheureux in 1967. After that he devoted himself entirely to movie roles.
"When I began to have success in the movies," Noiret told film critic Joe Leydon at the Cannes Film Festival in 1989, "it was a big surprise for me. For actors of my generation—all the men of 50 or 60 now in French movies—all of us were thinking of being stage actors. Even people like Jean-Paul Belmondo, all of us, we never thought we'd become movie stars. So, at the beginning, I was just doing it for the money, and because they asked me to do it. But after two or three years of working on movies, I started to enjoy it, and to be very interested in it. And I'm still very interested in it, because I've never really understood how it works. I mean, what is acting for the movies? I've never really understood."[1]
Noiret was cast primarily as the Everyman character, although he did not hesitate to accept controversial roles, such as in La Grande Bouffe, a film about suicide by overeating, which caused a scandal at Cannes in 1973, and in 1991 André Téchiné cast Noiret in J'embrasse pas (I Don't Kiss), as a melancholy old homosexual obsessed with young male flesh. And in 1987, in The Gold-rimmed Glasses based on Giorgio Bassani's novel about the cramped social life of post-war Ferrara in Italy, he played an elderly and respectable doctor who is gradually suspected of being a covert homosexual with a passion for a beautiful young man (Rupert Everett).
Noiret won his first César Award for his role in Vieux Fusil in 1976. His second César came in 1990 for his role in Life and Nothing But.
A true international star (helped by his fluency in English), Noiret appeared in Hollywood-financed films by Alfred Hitchcock (Topaz), George Cukor (Justine), Ted Kotcheff (Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?), Peter Yates (Murphy's War) and Anatole Litvak (The Night of the Generals). But he arguably is best known for his roles as Alfredo in Cinema Paradiso, Pablo Neruda in Il Postino, and Major Dellaplane in Bertrand Tavernier's Life and Nothing But.[2]
By the time of his death from cancer in Paris in 2006, Noiret had more than 100 film roles to his credit. He often joked with interviewers about his virtually non-stop work schedule, telling Joe Leydon in 1989: "You never know what will be the success of a film. And it's always comfortable to be making another film when you're reading terrible notices for your last film. You can say, 'Well, that's a pity, but I'm already working on another job.' It helps in your living. You see, if you're only making one film a year, or one film every year and a half, it's hard. Because when it's a failure, what do you do? What do you become? You're dead.”[1]
Awards
- BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
- 1990 - Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
Filmography (partial)
Title Year Notes Gigi 1949 Olivia 1950 Agence matrimoniale 1952 La Pointe courte 1956 Also known as The Short Point, with Agnès Varda Zazie dans le métro 1960 Also known as Zazie in the Metro or Zazie, directed by Louis Malle Le Capitaine Fracasse 1961 Comme un poisson dans l'eau 1962 English title: Like a Fish in the Water Le Crime ne paie pas 1962 Thérèse Desqueyroux 1962 Les Copains 1964 English title: The Buddies La Vie de château 1965 English title: Castle Life Tendre voyou 1966 Alexandre le bienheureux 1967 Night of the Generals 1967 Topaz 1969 L'Étau, by Alfred Hitchcock Clérambard 1969 Played as Hector de Clérambard Mr. Freedom 1969 Murphy's War 1971 La Mandarine 1971 La Vieille Fille 1972 La Grande Bouffe 1973 Played as Philippe Don't Touch the White Woman! 1974 The Clockmaker 1974 Amici miei 1975 Le vieux fusil 1975 Que la fête commence 1975 English title: Let Joy Reign Supreme Une Femme à sa Fenêtre 1976 English title: A Woman With Her Window Le juge et l'assassin 1976 English title: The Judge and the Assassin Un taxi mauve 1977 English title: The Purple Taxi Tendre Poulet 1977 Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? 1978 Le Témoin 1978 English title: The Witness Pile ou face 1980 On a volé la cuisse de Jupiter 1980 Tre fratelli 1981 English title: Three Brothers L'étoile du nord 1982 English title: North Star Amici Miei, Atto II 1982 Coup de Torchon 1981 Souvenirs souvenirs 1984 Les Ripoux 1984 English title: My New Partner Amici Miei, Atto III 1985 L'Eté prochain 1985 English title: The Next Summer La Famille 1986 English title: The Family Speriamo che sia femmina 1986 English title:Let's Hope It's a Girl Masques 1987 English title:Masks The Return of the Musketeers 1989 Ripoux contre ripoux 1989 Nuovo Cinema Paradiso 1989 J'embrasse pas 1991 English title: I Do Not Kiss Uranus 1991 Tango 1992 Il Postino 1994 Max et Jérémie English title: Max and Jérémie La Fille de d'Artagnan 1994 English title: The Daughter of d'Artagnan Marianna Ucria Soleil 1997 English title: Sun Les Palmes de M. Schutz 1997 Le Pique-nique de Lulu Kreutz 1999 English title: The Picnic with Lulu Kreutz Les Côtelettes 2002 English title: The Chops Père et fils 2002 Ripoux 3 2003 Voie d'eau 2006 English title: Swimming Away References
External links
- Philippe Noiret at the Internet Movie Database
- Guardian obituary
- Times obituary
- Philippe Noiret at Find a Grave
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (1980–1999) John Hurt (1980) · Burt Lancaster (1981) · Ben Kingsley (1982) · Michael Caine / Dustin Hoffman (1983) · Haing S. Ngor (1984) · William Hurt (1985) · Bob Hoskins (1986) · Sean Connery (1987) · John Cleese (1988) · Daniel Day-Lewis (1989) · Philippe Noiret (1990) · Anthony Hopkins (1991) · Robert Downey, Jr. (1992) · Anthony Hopkins (1993) · Hugh Grant (1994) · Nigel Hawthorne (1995) · Geoffrey Rush (1996) · Robert Carlyle (1997) · Roberto Benigni (1998) · Kevin Spacey (1999)
Complete list · (1952–1959) · (1960–1979) · (1980–1999) · (2000–2019) César Award for Best Actor 
1976 Philippe Noiret · 1977 Michel Galabru · 1978 Jean Rochefort · 1979 Michel Serrault · 1980 Claude Brasseur · 1981 Gérard Depardieu · 1982 Michel Serrault · 1983 Philippe Léotard · 1984 Coluche · 1985 Alain Delon · 1986 Christophe Lambert · 1987 Daniel Auteuil · 1988 Richard Bohringer · 1989 Jean-Paul Belmondo · 1990 Philippe Noiret · 1991 Gérard Depardieu · 1992 Jacques Dutronc · 1993 Claude Rich · 1994 Pierre Arditi · 1995 Gérard Lanvin · 1996 Michel Serrault · 1997 Philippe Torreton · 1998 André Dussollier · 1999 Jacques Villeret · 2000 Daniel Auteuil · 2001 Sergi López · 2002 Michel Bouquet · 2003 Adrien Brody · 2004 Omar Sharif · 2005 Mathieu Amalric · 2006 Michel Bouquet · 2007 François Cluzet · 2008 Mathieu Amalric · 2009 Vincent Cassel · 2010 Tahar Rahim · 2011 Éric Elmosnino
Categories:- 1930 births
- 2006 deaths
- People from Lille
- European Film Award for Best Actor winners
- BAFTA winners (people)
- Best Actor BAFTA Award winners
- Cancer deaths in France
- César Award winners
- French film actors
- French stage actors
- Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur
- Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery
- Lycée Janson de Sailly alumni
- BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
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