Jean Rochefort

Acting

Jean Rochefort

Born 1930-04-29 · Paris, France

Jean Raoul Robert Rochefort (29 April 1930 – 9 October 2017) was a French actor. He received many accolades during his career, including an Honorary César in 1999. Rochefort was born on 29 April 1930 in Paris, France, to Breton parents. Jean Rochefort was not born in Dinan, but his parents were living there. He was educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen. Rochefort was nineteen years old when he entered the Centre d'Art Dramatique de la rue Blanche. Later he joined the Conservatoire National. After completing his national service in 1953, he worked with the Compagnie Grenier Hussenot as a theatre actor for seven years. There he was noted for his ability to play both drama and comedy. He then became a television and cinema actor, and also worked as director. After some supporting roles in Cartouche, Captain Fracasse and in Marvelous Angelique, Rochefort played his first big role with Annie Girardot as his wife and Claude Jade as his daughter in Hearth Fires in 1972. In this drama, he starred as a man who leaves his family for ten years before returning. In this film he played at 41 years old a father of adult children (the young Claude Jade was already 23). To appear older, he grew a moustache, his trademark, which he later removed only once, in 1996 for Ridicule. Four years after Hearth Fires he was the leading star of the midlife crisis comedy Pardon Mon Affaire as a man who risks his married life with Danièle Delorme for an affair with Anny Duperey. Thanks to the success of this film, Rochefort became very popular. In 1972, he starred opposite Pierre Richard as Chief of Counter-Espionage, Louis Toulouse, in the Yves Robert comedy Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire, a role he reprised in the 1974 sequel Le Retour du grand blond, also directed by Robert. In 1998, he starred as "Fernand de Morcerf" opposite Gerard Depardieu in the mini-series Le Comte de Monte Cristo. In the eighties, he became the narrator of the French version of Welcome to Pooh Corner, replacing Laurie Main. This made him popular with children at the time and Disney hired him to record several audio versions of their classic movies. In the 1990s, he returned to comedy with Les Grands Ducs where he played alongside two other actors of his generation with a similar career, Philippe Noiret and Jean-Pierre Marielle. He was set to play the lead role in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, after being found as "the perfect Quixote" by director Terry Gilliam. Rochefort learned to speak English just for the part. Unfortunately, amongst other production problems, he began suffering from a herniated disc. Unable to film for months, production was cancelled. A documentary, Lost in La Mancha, was made about the failed production. In 1960, he married Alexandra Moscwa, with whom he had two children: Marie (1962) and Julien (1965). With actress-filmmaker Nicole Garcia, he also had a son Pierre. Through his second marriage with Françoise Vidal, he had two children, Louise (1990) and Clémence (1992). ... Description above from the Wikipedia article Jean Rochefort, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Mr. Bean's Holiday poster
6.4

Mr. Bean wins a trip to Cannes where he unwittingly separates a young boy from his father and must help the two reunite. On the way he discovers France, bicycling and true love, among other things.

Mr. Bean's Holiday

2007

April and the Extraordinary World poster
7.1

It's 1941, but France is trapped in the 19th Century, governed by steam and Napoleon V. Avril, a teenage girl, goes in search of her missing scientist parents.

April and the Extraordinary World

2015

Angelique: The Road to Versailles poster
6.6

Angelique is saved by the king of the cutthroats when she is endangered in the streets of Paris. After her hero is killed, she has many amorous affairs and becomes a successful businesswoman.

Angelique: The Road to Versailles

1965

Prêt-à-Porter poster
5.2

During Paris Fashion Week, models, designers and industry hot shots gather to work, mingle, argue and try to seduce one another.

Prêt-à-Porter

1994

The Closet poster
6.4

A man spreads the rumor of his fake homosexuality with the aid of his neighbor, to prevent his imminent firing at his work.

The Closet

2001

Femmes Fatales poster
6.1

Two men, fortyish, worn out by their wives, abandon everything to go and live in the back of beyond. There they meet a truculent priest, a boozer, Émile who recalls them to life's simple pleasures. Calm is what they want. But soon their example inspires thousands of disorientated males...

Femmes Fatales

1976

Tell No One poster
7.2

A man receives a mysterious email appearing to be from his wife, who was murdered years earlier. As he frantically tries to find out whether she's alive, he finds himself being implicated in her death.

Tell No One

2006

Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart poster
7.2

Jack is born with his heart frozen solid on the coldest day in history. A wise midwife saves him by replacing it with a cuckoo clock. Now Jack must abide by three rules to keep his mechanical heart safe: never touch the clock's hands, master his anger, and never fall in love. He tries his best, but when he meets a girl named Acacia he falls in love, threatening the delicate balance of his artificial heart.

Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart

2014

Asterix & Obelix: God Save Britannia poster
5.1

Asterix crosses the channel to help second-cousin Anticlimax face down Julius Caesar and invading Romans.

Asterix & Obelix: God Save Britannia

2012

Lucky Luke and the Daltons poster
3.6

Joe and Averell are the eldest and youngest of the four Dalton brothers, the worst outlaws in Wild West history...

Lucky Luke and the Daltons

2004

RRRrrrr!!! poster
6.3

In 35,000 BC, the tribe of the Dirty Hairs is at war against the tribe of the Clean Hairs for eight hundred years, trying to get their shampoo. The chief of the Dirty Hairs sends his daughter Guy disguised to the enemy tribe to get some shampoo for his tribe. When the healer of the Clean Hairs tribe surprisingly kills two cavemen of his tribe, their imbecile chief assigns Pierre with curled hair and Pierre blonde to investigate the murder and find the criminal.

RRRrrrr!!!

2004

Ridicule poster
6.9

To get royal backing on a needed drainage project, a poor French lord must learn to play the delicate games of wit at court at Versailles.

Ridicule

1996

Agathe Cléry poster
4.8

Agathe Clery, a marketing manager for a cosmetics company, is snobbish, stubborn and racist. When she is diagnosed with Addison Syndrome, an disorder that darkens the pigmentation of one's skin, she suddenly finds herself resembling a black woman.

Agathe Cléry

2008

Angelique poster
6.7

In 17th-century France, beautiful country maiden Angélique marries wealthy neighbor Jeoffray de Peyrac out of convenience, but eventually, she falls in love with him. So when Jeoffray is arrested and then vanishes, she bravely sets out to find him. This is the first of many dramas based on Anne and Serge Golon's novels about strong-willed Angélique and her adventures during the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King.

Angelique

1964

The Hairdresser's Husband poster
6.8

Antoine has always been fascinated by a hairdresser's delicate touch, the beguiling perfume, and the enticing figure of a woman with an opulent bosom. After all, he had always known he would marry one, completing his idealized love fantasy.

The Hairdresser's Husband

1990

The Phantom of Liberty poster
7.5

This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.

The Phantom of Liberty

1974

Sun in Your Eyes poster
6.5

A love triangle between 23-year-old Emma (Anna Karina), her older boyfriend (Georges Descrières) and the younger man (Jacques Perrin) she meets while on vacation by herself.

Sun in Your Eyes

1962

The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe poster
7.0

A hapless orchestra player becomes an unwitting pawn of rival factions within the French secret service after he is chosen as a decoy by being identified as a super secret agent.

The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe

1972

La Galette du roi poster
4.5

In this conventional, broadly comic farce of greed and royal matrimony, nearly bankrupt businessman Victor Harris is marrying Maria-Helena, a princess who comes with a dowry that is made up of one half of her island kingdom. Her father, the cowardly King Arnold III is counting on the money this marriage will bring him. The country is now almost bankrupt because of the king's gambling debts. As Harris and the king look forward to their illusory profits from the royal merger, other characters add some liveliness to the otherwise predictable story.

La Galette du roi

1986

Angelique and the King poster
6.5

Soon after her latest husband death, the King himself (Louis XIV) meets with our heroine and begs her to help convince the Persian Ambassador to agree to a treaty. However, what they didn't realize was that the handsome Persian was in fact a sexual sadist. So, it is up to the King's half- brother, some Hungarian prince, to save Angélique from the evil troll's clutches.

Angelique and the King

1966

Hell poster
6.1

Three sisters who share a connection to a violent childhood incident reunite for the chance to come to terms with their past.

Hell

2005

The Return of the Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe poster
6.6

With "little captain" Cambrai raising serious doubts about the reality of the so-called "super spy," Colonel Toulouse kidnaps Christine and forces Francois to play again the character of "The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe" in some fake adventures. All this to stop the investigation into the death of Colonel Milan.

The Return of the Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe

1974

The Skirt Chaser poster
5.6

A discontented concert pianist causes all sorts of heartbreak with his egotistical and womanizing antics, and all the people in his life attempt to force him to grow up in this French comedy/drama.

The Skirt Chaser

1979

Saint-Germain ou La négociation poster
7.0

This is the TV adaptation of a novel by Francis Walder. The scene happens in 1570, during the religions wars between catholics and protestants in France. Both sides are decided for a truth, to enable peaceful negociations of a settlement, which will become the peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the same year. The negociation, lead by Henri de Malassise (Jean Rochefort), and the Earl of Biron for the Catholic side, and Mr. d'Ublé and M. de Mélynes for the protestants side.

Saint-Germain ou La négociation

2003

Behind the camera