From him, we remember a grandiloquent gesture, sweet attentions towards others and legendary outbursts of anger.
Symbol of the "average Frenchman" that we love to hate, Louis de Funès marked the seventh art in France by his volubility.
Born in 1914, from a ruined diamond father, his rich career of more than 140 films got off to a late start.
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After having exercised various professions, including that of bookkeeper, Louis de Funès began a life as an artist.
He attends a drama course for a while and earns his living as a pianist in a piano bar.
Until the day he gets his first role in a play thanks to Daniel Gélin.
Long confined to supporting roles, both in the theater and in the cinema, it was the film
La Traversée de Paris
(1956) that revealed him alongside Jean Gabin and Bourvil.
There followed a battalion of popular films, such as
Pouic-pouic
(1963) or
Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez
(1964), which established him.
Very quickly, the texts played by the actor become cult.
And lines like
“what am I going to become?
I am a minister I do not know how to do anything”,
(
Delusions of grandeur
, 1971), mark the spirits.
Anthology of the best of them.
How the fuck then?
But then you are French?
Directed by Gérard Oury,
La grande vadrouille
(1966) tells the story of two French people who are opposed to everything during the Second World War.
One, a naive house painter (Bourvil), and the other, a cantankerous conductor (Louis de Funès), find themselves forced to help a small group of British airmen get to the free zone, while the Germans are on their heels.
In the scene of the Turkish bath, where the two men are in search of "Big mustache", English squadron leader, their mastery of the language of Shakespeare somewhat betrays their cover... It is at this moment in the film that the 'we can hear Louis de Funès, falsely candid, say to Bourvil:
“How the hell is that then?
But then you are French?”
They depended on me my hanged man!
He didn't depend on himself?!
In 1967, in
Fantômas contre Scotland Yard
, the last film in André Hunebelle's trilogy, the genius of crime has the ambition of imposing a tax on the rich on the right to live.
The blackmail exerted on a wealthy Scottish lord, owner of a haunted castle, puts Commissioner Juve (Louis de Funès), supposed to protect him, on the track.
But he himself is a victim of the macabre humor of Fantômas who manhandles him by hanging hanged people in his room.
A blessing in disguise when we see that this pretty formula, playing on the repetition of the word “hanged man”, is the result:
“They depended on me my hanged man!
He didn't depend on himself?!
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Where are you, my doe?
Six films make up the
Gendarme de Saint-Tropez
saga , the one we consume without moderation every summer.
In the third part, Le gendarme se marie, produced in 1968, Cruchot (Louis de Funès) meets Josépha (Claude Gensac), an intrepid driver.
The meeting between these two, (literally) electric, gives birth to a tender love story that leads them to the altar.
The one who encourages her new husband to prepare for the chief warrant officer competition is given the nickname “my doe”.
The poor are made to be very poor and the rich very rich!
In 1971, Gérard Oury again, in the free adaptation of Ruy Blas, a play by Victor Hugo, offered Louis de Funès one of his greatest roles.
That of Don Sallust, in Delusions of Grandeur.
The story takes place in 17th century Spain.
Minister of Finance to the King of Spain, the greedy Don Sallust (who dares to proclaim loud and clear:
"The poor are made to be very poor and the rich very rich!"
) is chased out of court by the queen.
To regain his functions and his wealth, he tries to compromise the sovereign by manipulating his former valet, Blaze (Yves Montand), transfixed with love for her.
But for the two men, the adventure results in failure: expulsion to the Barbary Islands.
