Michel Modo

Acting

Michel Modo

Born 1937-03-30 · Carpentras, Vaucluse, France

Michel Modo, born Michel Henri Louis Goi at Carpentras (Vaucluse) (born March 30, 1937 - died September 25, 2008), was a French actor and humorist. Modo died of cancer on September 25, 2008 in Vaires-sur-Marne (Seine-et-Marne). He is best known in France for having formed in the late 1950s a comedy duo, Grosso et Modo, with actor Guy Grosso. The duo appeared in many movies with Louis de Funès, among which the series of Gendarmes de Saint Tropez, where he will played the role of Constable Berlicot alongside Michel Galabru, Jean Lefebvre and Christian Marin. They were also Laflûte and Quince in The Dream of a Summer Night by Jean-Christophe Averty. Between 1993 and 1997 he is one of the recurring actors in the television series Highlander as Maurice Lolande, humorous character characterizing the average French person. In December 2005, he stars in the television series Plus belle la vie alongside Colette Renard. He plays a bum philosopher disguised as Santa Claus. He also dubbed several recurring characters in the French version of the animated series The Simpsons. At his sudden death in 2008 at the age of 71, when dubbing the last episodes of season 19, he was replaced on the spot by Gérard Rinaldi, who died in his turn from cancer on March 2, 2012.

Acting credits

Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! poster
7.9

During World War II, two French civilians and a downed British Bomber Crew set out from Paris to cross the demarcation line between Nazi-occupied Northern France and the South. From there they will be able to escape to England. First, they must avoid German troops – and the consequences of their own blunders.

Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!

1966

The Miser poster
6.3

The children of Harpagon, Cléante and his sister Elise, are each in love but they still haven’t spoken to their father yet. Harpagon is a miser who wants to choose the right man and the right woman for his children. Based on Molière’s play.

The Miser

1980

The Sucker poster
7.4

In this Franco-Italian gangster parody, a shopkeeper on his way to an Italian holiday suffers a crash that totals his car. The culprit can only compensate his ruined trip by driving an American friend's car from Naples to Bordeaux, but as it happens to be filled with such contraband as stolen money, jewelry and drugs, the involuntary and unwitting companions in crime soon attract all but recreational attention from the "milieu".

The Sucker

1965

Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez poster
7.0

The ambitious police officer Cruchot is transferred to St. Tropez. He's struggling with crimes such as persistent nude swimming, but even more with his teenage daughter, who's trying to impress her rich friends by telling them her father was a millionaire and owned a yacht in the harbor.

Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez

1964

The Gendarme Takes Off poster
6.3

The whole clique of Cruchot's police station is retired. Now he lives with his rich wife in her castle - and is bored almost to death. He fights with the butler, because he isn't even allowed to do the simple works. But when one of the clique suffers from amnesia after an accident, all of the others reunite and kidnap him, to take him on a tour to their old working places and through their memories. In their old uniforms they turn St. Tropez upside down.

The Gendarme Takes Off

1970

The Gendarme and the Creatures from Outer Space poster
6.1

The bungling inspector Cruchot finds himself trying to save the residents of St. Tropez from some oil-drinking humanoid aliens. The only way to tell the aliens from the real people, besides their constant thirst for oil-products, is that they sound like empty garbage cans when you touch them. Chaos is ahead.

The Gendarme and the Creatures from Outer Space

1979

The Gendarme Gets Married poster
6.5

The Saint-Tropez police launch a major offensive against dangerous drivers. Marechal Cruchot (Louis de Funès) relishes the assignment, which he pursues with a manic zeal. Cruchot is after an offending driver, who turns out to be Josépha (Claude Gensac), the widow of a highly regarded police colonel. When they meet, Cruchot falls instantly in love....

The Gendarme Gets Married

1968

The Gendarme and the Gendarmettes poster
6.0

Cruchot's police office moves into a new building. They do not only get high tech equipment, but also four young female police officers to educate. All of them scramble to work with them -- and cause pure chaos while being distracted by the fine ladies. Then they get into real trouble when one after the other of their female colleagues is kidnapped.

The Gendarme and the Gendarmettes

1982

The Smurfs and the Magic Flute poster
6.5

The evil knight Torchesac, who is at the service of the sinister lord of La Mortaille, gets a very powerful magic flute and uses it for evil purposes. Johan and Pirlouit, assisted by the magician Homnibus, travel to the land of the Smurfs, the only manufacturers of this sort of instrument, to get a new one and battle the usurpers.

The Smurfs and the Magic Flute

1975

The Gendarme in New York poster
6.3

Sergeant Cruchot and his faithful comrades have been sent to the International Congress of Gendarmerie in N.Y.

The Gendarme in New York

1965

The Female Executioner poster
4.3

Martine is a tough female cop trying to solve the kidnapping of young Caroline by a gang of pornographers. She already has an accomplice inside the gang feeding her information, but progress is hindered by her own police commissioner. In her private live, Martine likes to hang around with her male colleagues, swapping a younger cop for the more mature and experienced Jean.

The Female Executioner

1986

The Restaurant poster
6.8

A great French restaurant's owner, Monsieur Septime, is thrust into intrigue and crime, when one of his famous guests disappears.

The Restaurant

1966

Les coucous poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Les coucous

1978

The Seventh Company Has Been Found poster
7.3

The second part of the Seventh Company adventures.

The Seventh Company Has Been Found

1975

Carom Shots poster
6.1

Paul Martin is the subservient brown-nosing youngster who needs quick advancement up the hierarchy to pay for the modern lifestyle he is buying on credit. Seeing that marrying his immediate superior's daughter will not get him the results he wants, he begins plotting the demise of the head of the company. The company itself specializes in holiday travel and unscrupulously brutalizes its customers for maximum profit, spending more thought on publicity gimmicks than customer service...

Carom Shots

1963

Les Gorilles poster
6.4

A confused pair of airport luggage carriers get involved in the disappearance of some suitcases.

Les Gorilles

1964

Herminie poster
6.0

No synopsis available yet.

Herminie

1971

My Mother's Castle poster
7.2

To his chagrin, young Marcel Pagnol and his family move back to their home in Marseille, France, far from their pastoral holiday cottage in the hills. Determined, Marcel makes the long voyage back to the cottage on foot and lands himself in trouble. One day Marcel's father discovers a shortcut to the cottage, but it requires trespassing. Despite their trepidations, Marcel and his family begin using the secret trail to reach their cottage.

My Mother's Castle

1990

Poltergay poster
5.3

Marc and Emma move into a new house but have no idea that their basement was a gay nightclub. To make matters worse, the club was destroyed by fire, and now the house is haunted by the ghosts of five gay clubbers.

Poltergay

2006

My Father's Glory poster
7.3

Raised by his science teacher father, Joseph Pagnol, and seamstress mother Augustine, young Marcel grows up during the turn of the century in awe of his rationalist dad. When the family takes a summer vacation in the countryside, Marcel becomes friends with Lili, who teaches him about rural life.

My Father's Glory

1990

Shock Troops poster
6.7

A French resistance group free twelve soldiers from a German prison camp, but apparently there's an additional detainee among them suspected of being an enemy spy.

Shock Troops

1967

Ubu enchaîné poster
NR

Father Ubu, grotesque king and symbol of the tyranny of power in Ubu king, decides to become a slave to acquire real power. This is the first sequel to "Ubu roi" (1965) directed by Averty.

Ubu enchaîné

1971

Rita the Field Marshal poster
5.2

A waitress helps a scientist flee the Nazis.

Rita the Field Marshal

1967

Gypsy Law poster
10.0

The idyllic life of a beautiful gypsy girl is shattered when she runs away from a pre-arranged marriage to a member of her tribe. Away from the safety of her people, she encounters bigotry against her kind. A little girl feels sorry for the missing gypsy beauty and searches for a magic root that can cure the wandering gypsy from her wanderlust and bring her home again. Music, dance, ancient gypsy rituals, and colorful European scenery highlight this feature which takes a decidedly jaundiced view of the racial indignities suffered by the heroine.

Gypsy Law

1963

Behind the camera