The anecdote is as surprising as it is tasty.
Les Copains du Dimanche
by Henri Aisner, Jean-Paul Belmondo's first film released in 1957, was produced under the aegis of the CGT, the large communist workers' union.
Le Magnifique, who unlike his rival and friend Alain Delon, has always been careful not to display his political opinions all his life, defended in his memoirs, A
thousand lives are better than one,
this first work by writing that it was a question here of "
celebrating the brotherhood of the workers
".
Read the fileDeath of Jean-Paul Belmondo, sacred monster of French cinema
Although a defender of political correctness, Bébel never wanted to offend his popular public by displaying his political opinions. He also declared very early in his career in
Paris Match
: “
I have no message to convey, I have always played for everyone.
"And perhaps to take the opposite view of the great committed actors of the time like Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, he will define his line of conduct by adding:"
It is too easy when you live in the luxury to shout: "
Y'en fed up with unemployment, wars, etc". ". In his cheeky manner and in the style of his friend Coluche, he could even have concluded with the definitive: “
Move around, there's nothing to see.
"
Belmondo, president of the SFA from 1963 to 1966
If he felt that his political opinions should remain in the field of private life, on the other hand Jean-Paul Belmondo was therefore committed, especially at the beginning of his career to defend the rights of his fellow acrobats.
From the end of the 1950s, after his passage at the Conservatory, he therefore took his card from the French Actors Union (SFA), an offshoot of the CGT.
In 1962, hero and herald of our cinema after his first triumph in
Breathless,
he participated in the 1962 Gala of the Union des Artistes by performing breathtaking stunts to show that he is ready to wet his shirt to defend its congeners.
The many faces of Jean-Paul Belmondo
Go to the slideshow (16)
In 1963, after
The Man from Rio
who consecrated him as a sacred monster at the age of 30, the man whom everyone now affectionately nicknames Bébel, was unanimously elected president of the SFA. In his biography, he will explain why, for the only time in his professional life, he made a public commitment: “
I had always felt concerned by militant battles, because it was a question of defending our rights at a time when directors pocketed all the glory, and producers all the dough. My consideration for the profession of actor was far too great to allow without flinching that we are devalued, despoiled, mistreated. There was therefore no question of fighting from a distance, from afar, without being immersed in common concerns.
"
"
Farewell, comrade
"
Jean-Paul Belmondo will resign from his mandate in 1966 (while remaining a member of the union), because with the intellectual honesty which characterized him, he no longer felt able to devote all the time necessary to the defense of human rights. his sisters and brothers from trestles and stage.
The CGT did not hold it against him.
The day after his death, the Syndicat français des artistes greeted the man, the artist and the activist one last, writing: "Farewell, comrade."
An extract from Henri Aisner's Sunday Friends, in 1958, with Jean-Paul Belmondo, Michel Piccoli, Marc Cassot, Paul Frankeur ...
