Celebrity Biographies
Jean Claude Brialy
He was one of the faces of the French Nouvelle Vague. Although outside of his country he was a great unknown, Jean-Claude Brialy was considered one of the greats in his country. He played almost two hundred films, directed a dozen times and gained enormous prestige in the theater. Brialy died on May 30 at his Parisian home, as a result of a long illness.
The news has moved the French, because for them he was one of those “lifelong” actors. Even the new French president, Nicolás Sarkozy, has publicly declared his regret for Brialy, whom he described as “a sentinel of the night, of the party and of poetry.”
Jean-Claude Brialy was born in Algeria on March 30, 1933, as his father was a military stationed there. Determined to become an actor, he moved to Paris in 1954. He began as an extra in titles like Elena and the men , by the master Jean Renoir . Director Claude Chabrol soon noticed his acting skills , who recruited him for El bello Sergio , the film that started the Nouvelle Vague. Brialy played a guy who arrives in his hometown after years of absence, and is reunited with his friend Serge, who has had a difficult life. Chabrol once again gave him one of the leading roles in The Cousins, his second job, a tribute to Hitchcock in which the actor was a womanizing and drunken student who welcomed his cousin from the countryside into his apartment. The other Nouvelle Vague filmmakers also noticed Brialy, who at that time worked with creators such as François Truffaut ( The Four Hundred Blows , The Bride Wore Black ), Jean Luc Godard ( A Woman Is a Woman ) and Eric Rohmer . ( Clara’s knee ).
In 1971 he decided to try his luck as a director, with Eglantine , based on his childhood memories, which was followed by several films, such as A Rainy Love . The rest of the 70s he did not stop working, as he was one of the most requested actors in his country, by directors like Luis Buñuel ( El fantasma de la libertad ) and Bertrand Tavernier ( The judge and the murderer ). In recent decades he has appeared in numerous titles, such as The Monster , The Love of a French Woman , Beaumarchais the Insolent , Queen Margot , Chinese Portraits andunfair competition He continued to be active until his death, leaving Les sapins bleus , starring him and the recently deceased Jean-Pierre Cassel , another of the deans of French interpretation, pending its premiere.