50 years since Bourvil's disappearance: "My father wanted to make a career in America"

Dominique Raimbourg bears his father's surname: born André Raimbourg, the latter had chosen to be called Bourvil in homage to Bourville, the Norman village where his grandparents lived.

Fifty years after the death of Bourvil, who disappeared on September 23, 1970 at the age of 53, his eldest son drew on his personal collection to feed the exhibition currently devoted to the actor and singer in Lille.

An exhibition organized as part of the CineComedies festival, which will also screen "Le Corniaud" and "La Traversée de Paris".

On this occasion, Dominique Raimbourg tells us about his father.

Entitled "Le cinema de Bourvil", the Lille exhibition includes 450 photos, posters, film objects or objects that belonged to your father.

Which of these coins is most valuable to you?

DOMINIQUE RAIMBURG

.

The Empire-style wooden desk, with a green leather top on it, that my father owned and that he let me work on when I was a teenager.

I got it back in 1973 and installed it in my law firm.

This was my office until 2006, when I entrusted it to Pascal Delmotte, the curator of the Lille exhibition.

You were 20 when your father died.

Which father was Bourvil?

He put his genius into his work… He was a workaholic.

When I was very young, he often shot films during the day and in the evening, he was on stage to play "La Route fleurie", which he performed 1300 times between 1951 and 1956. But he was present at home. all the same: he took vacations with us, we went every summer to our country house in Yvelines and to his parents in Bourville.

Sometimes, too, we would go, to the Côte d'Azur for example… And then, even if my father didn't make my brother and me do our homework, he was the one who encouraged us to learn English.

Did he give you lessons?

No, but he was telling us

!

He himself wanted to make a career in the United States.

He spoke good English and had gone to New York on tour.

Edith Piaf then advised him to sing a few concerts in English.

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And was he funny at home?

Of course !

He loved to laugh and was extremely cheerful by nature.

Nothing amused him: he had the particularity of seeing the comic behind the tragic and, conversely, the tragic behind the comic.

He had a very special sensitivity.

Have you seen her colleagues and friends, Annie Cordy, Louis de Funès, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Georges Brassens…?

Not often.

Brassens, yes, because he had a house near my parents' in Yvelines, so he sometimes came to chat with my father.

Me, I was a teenager so that didn't surprise me

!

I also remember Mocky, who came to present his films to my father: he had an old Volvo which released oil on the gravel, it annoyed my mother ... And then, I remember an evening when Gérard Oury, who was extremely pleasant, had come to read the script to my father.

I don't know if it was “La folie des grandeurs” or “La grande vadrouille”, but it was a wonderful moment!

Annie Cordy, I had seen her on a shoot with my father in Spain: I was amazed by her big American convertible car…

Were you going to see your father on the set?

Very little because I was bored there.

But I remember going on the set of "Corniaud": I had attended the filming of the scene where my father brings a Cadillac into a garage after having broken the bumper ... That had amused me.

They say that your father also dated Jean-Paul Sartre ...

He had passed her and they had spent an evening together.

My father was in awe of people who had a great education.

He was a very good student, but did not like boarding school so, while not wanting to take over the family farm, he quickly stopped his studies.

What was it like when you went out with your father on the street?

We couldn't go everywhere.

When we went to Normandy, we chose a little frequented beach, at the edge of which there was no cafe.

And no question of going to the fun fair!

But my father was always very kind to people who asked him for autographs.

He even walked around with pictures of him and markers in his pockets… He told me

At the end of his life, he hid the bone marrow cancer he was suffering from so that he could continue to play ...

Yes, he was afraid that the insurance would prevent him from playing.

He also shot his last films with producers who agreed not to be covered by insurance.

My dad loved to play.

And as long as he was spinning, he felt like he could escape death.

Did he end his life being rich?

He was immune to want: he was paid extremely well for his films.

But at the time, he wasn't negotiating theatrical entry rights.

Above all, he only produced one of his films and it was a failure so he refused to produce any more.

Today, my brother and I only receive between 4000 and 8000 euros per year from my father's work: especially the rights to his songs.

But I'm not crying over my fate at all!

What are your favorite Bourvil films?

I really like “La grande vadrouille”.

It's still great, the care taken in the writing: "There's no helix, alas / That's where the bone is" ... I also really like "A strange parishioner": this character of thief transfigured by faith infuses a great poetry in the universe of Mocky.

Have you yourself thought about making films?

Impossible !

How do you want to get behind my father?

Besides, he told me that it was a terrible job, with few chosen ones, and that luck was not necessarily hereditary.

Does Bourvil have heirs in today's cinema?

"Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" tells the same story as "La grande vadrouille": the tandem formed by Dany Boon and Kad Merad is the house painter and the conductor played by my father and de Funès, who are tied at the end of Gérard Oury's film!

Have you ever met Dany Boon?

No.

I ran into him on the train four or five years ago, but I didn't dare go bother him.

I regret…