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Screenwriter and actor Jean-Claude Carrière (2014)
Photo: Mark Ralston / AFP
He wrote dozens of literary works and screenplays as well as a large number of essays, he translated William Shakespeare, worked as an actor and drew: On Monday, Jean-Claude Carrière died "while sleeping" in his Paris apartment, as his daughter Kiara Carrière told the AFP news agency .
He was 89 years old.
Carriere wrote his first novel in 1957, and in 1963 he won his first Oscar for the short film "Heureux Anniversaire", which he wrote and directed with PierrÉtaix.
Around 60 scripts followed, including the script for Volker Schlöndorff's »Die Blechtrommel«.
The adaptation of the novel by Günter Grass received the Oscar in 1989 for best non-English language film.
In his long and productive career, Carrière has also worked with legendary film directors such as Luis Buñuel, Jacques Deray, Jean-Luc Godard and Milos Forman.
For Buñuel, for example, Carrière wrote the scripts for “Belle de Jour - Beauty of the Day” (1967) with Catherine Deneuve in the lead role and “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972).
This mocking film about high society also won the Oscar for best foreign language film.
Active well into old age
Carrière also wrote the scripts for the adaptation of Milan Kundera's successful novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988) and for "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1990) with Gérard Depardieu as the title character.
In 2014 Carrière was awarded an honorary Oscar for his life's work as a screenwriter.
As an actor, Carrière has appeared in more than a dozen films with stars such as Brigitte Bardot, Juliette Gréco and Jeanne Moreau.
Carrière was involved in high-class film productions well into old age, so in 2018 he wrote the script for the critically acclaimed Van Gogh biopic “At Eternity's Gate” together with director Julian Schnabel, and last year the French drama “Le sel des larmes «, which he wrote together with director Philippe Garrel, in the competition of the Berlinale,
According to his daughter, a homage for Carrière will take place in Paris in the next few days.
He is to be buried in his home town of Colombières-sur-Orb in southern France, where he was born in 1931.
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