The playwright and ex-entrepreneur Michel Vinaver, who had notably transposed the Bettencourt affair to the theater, died on Sunday May 1 in Paris at the age of 95, his daughter, actress Anouk, announced to AFP. Grinberg.
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Son of an antiques dealer and a lawyer, Michel Vinaver - Grinberg of his real name - has for nearly 30 years led a double life: executive then director of Gillette and playwright.
He first wrote two novels before coming to the theater in 1955, two years after his hiring at Gillette.
“
I had ruled out from the outset to depend on my literary production to live
,” he confided to AFP in 2015.
His first plays, "
Les
Coreans" --created by Roger Planchon in 1956-- and "
Les Huissiers
" have nothing to do with the executive life of this father of four children, including Anouk Grinberg.
“
I had set myself a ban: not to talk about me and my work
,” he told AFP.
After a few parts, it's the breakdown.
“
I came out of it by lifting this taboo
”.
He wrote “
Overboard
”: the story of the absorption of a French family company by an American multinational.
From then on, the company takes a central place in the work of the man who will be nominated three times for the Molières and winner of the Grand Prize for Theater of the French Academy in 2006. Thus, "
Les travaux et les jours
" takes place in the after-sales service of a coffee grinder manufacturer.
In "
The Job Demand
", the main character is an unemployed executive.
In "
The Ordinary
", which entered the Comédie-Française repertoire in 2009, the president of a multinational, his wife, his secretary and four vice-presidents survive a plane crash in the Andes mountain range.
When Edwy Plenel, co-founder of the Mediapart site, the source of many revelations about the Bettencourt affair, approaches him for an adaptation, Michel Vinaver judges the affair “
too abundant, with too many events, characters
”.
But he is caught up in the intrigue and the passionate relationship between Liliane Bettencourt and her daughter Françoise, "
characters of ancient tragedy
", according to him.
Result: "
Bettencourt Boulevard
" (created at the TNP in Villeurbanne), a mille-feuille of family intrigues, devouring jealousies, corruption at all levels.
With the great story in the background: Liliane Bettencourt's father, Eugène Schueller, founder of L'Oréal, cultivated collaborationist friendships during the war, and Rabbi Robert Meyers, grandfather of Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers' husband , deported to Auschwitz.
