Biography: life and films
Michel Blanc is a French film actor and director. He was born in
Courbevoie, France on 16 April 1952. He began his career as a
member of the comedy troupe Équipe du Splendid, which comprised
his high school friends Josianne Balasko, Christian Clavier, Thierry
Lhermitte, Gérard Jugnot and Marie-Anne Chazel, all of whom
would become prominent actors in their own right. The troupe
performed café-théâtre plays, two of which were to
become cult films:
Les Bronzés (1978) and
Le Père Noël est une ordure
(1982). Blanc's character in
Les
Bronzés, an ineffectual but likeable Don Juan, is one
that stuck with him for much of his early career, including a series of
films he made with Patrice Leconte, such as
Viens
chez moi, j'habite chez une copine (1980).
In 1984, Michel Blanc made an auspicious directorial debut with
Marche
à l'ombre, a hit comedy in which he played opposite
another rising star, Gérard Lanvin. Bertrand Blier's subversive
comedy
Tenue de soirée (1986)
ejected him from the comfortable groove he had created for himself, and
his sympathetic portrayal of a bisexual loser won him a Best Actor
award at Cannes. In 1989, Blanc was able to extend his repertoire
further in Patrice Leconte
Monsieur Hire (1989), as a much
darker version of the comedy loners he had played hitherto.
In the decades that followed, Blanc's by now familiar screen persona
kept cropping up in a diverse mix of film comedies and dramas, and he
still found time to direct three successful films:
Grosse fatigue (1994),
Mauvaise
passe (1999) and
Embrassez qui vous voudrez
(2002). Recently, he has distinguished himself in two film dramas by
André Téchiné:
Les
Témoins (2007) and
La Fille du RER (2009), and in
Alfred Lot's
Une petite zone de turbulences
(2010) he turned in one of his best comedy performances, as a chronic
hypochondriac. In 2012, Michel Blanc received his first César
(having been previously nominated seven times) for his supporting role
in Pierre Schoeller's
L'Exercice de l'État
(2011); that same year he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour.
© James Travers 2013
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