Biography of Gerard Depardieu :- After a difficult adolescence, he was convicted of petty theft at a correctional institution and studied Dramatic Art as a therapy at Jean Laurent Cochet’s school.
At the age of sixteen, he made his film debut with Roger Leenhardt’s short film Le beatnik et le minet (1965), and in the same year he participated in the unfinished Christmas Carol by Agnès Varda.
Biography of Gerard Depardieu
- Born:- 27 December 1948 (age 68), Châteauroux, France
- Height:- 1.8 m
- Spouse:- Élisabeth Depardieu (m. 1970–1996)
- Partner:- Clémentine Igou (2005–)
- TV Shows:- Les Misérables, Marseille, The Count of Monte Cristo, Napoléon, La Femme Musketeer
For years he worked in the theater and in dramatic spaces of television (intervening in works of the National Theater like “A girl in my soup”, “Salvados”, Galápagos, among others many) and from 1970 began to appear of regular form in The cinema, and married his first wife, Elisabeth Guignot, in 1970.
See Also: Biography of Forest Whitaker
Among his first outstanding works was Marguerite Duras’ Nathalie Granger (1972), in which he gave life to a washer seller.
Depardieu was the only male presence within the hermetic silence of Jeanne Moureau and Lucia Bosé. Nathalie Granger was her first collaboration with Marguerite Duras and marked a trend that became a constant of Depardieu’s career: the balance between commercial projects and other more artistic.
His physique allowed him to work in all genres, but it was in the police where he gave the best of himself, especially in his collaborations with writer and director José Giovanni ( The Clan of Marseilles, 1972, Two men in the city, 1973 ).
After another film with Duras ( La femme du Gange, 1973), he starred in Bertrand Blier’s Los rompepelotas (1974), an erotic comedy that garnered spectacular box-office success in France and made stars such as Patrick Dewaere and Gerard Depardieu.
Based on the novel by Blier himself, Los rompepelotas recounted the sexual adventures of a pair of unbalanced criminals during a trip through France.
Far from stagnating in light roles, Depardieu sought projects of increasing complexity with the best European directors.
With Novecento (1976), by Bernardo Bertolucci, he achieved a resounding international success of public and criticism for his powerful interpretation of the peasant Olmo Dalco in this saga of more than four hours duration set in early twentieth century Italy.
Depardieu stood out in a luxury cast among others by Robert De Niro, Burt Lancaster and Donald Sutherland.
In constant growth as an actor, he demonstrated his versatility in films as different as the experimental Le camion (1977), his latest collaboration with Marguerite Duras, or the Oscar-winning comedy for Best Foreign Film.
Do you want to be my wife’s lover? (1978), by Bertrand Blier, fundamental director in the career of Depardieu. In the seventies he received the Gerard Philipe Award for Theater (1973) and produced the film Gerard Sing. At night all cats are brown (1977).
At the beginning of the eighties, Depardieu became the most important star of French cinema. His fame spread to international markets thanks to his collaborations with established authors.
The last meter (1980) by François Truffaut – a homage to Being or Not to Be (1942) by Ernst Lubitsch who starred alongside Catherine Deneuve – earned him the César Award for Best Actor.
He starred in Loulou (1980), Maurice Pialat, where he exploded his enormous physique to give veracity to a small offender.
His greatest hits at that time were Andrzej Wajda’s Danton (1982) and Daniel Vigne’s The Return of Martin Guerre (1982), a drama set in the Middle Ages and written by Vigne and Jean-Claude Carrière himself.
Depardieu played a man who returns home after an absence of eight years and is not recognized by his wife. The success of the film in the United States propitiated a new version with Richard Gere like protagonist, Sommersby (1992), of Jon Amiel.
In 1984 he made his directorial debut with the overly theatrical Tartufo (1984), an adaptation of Molière’s classic starring himself and his wife Elisabeth. He received the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his work in Police (1985),
Gerard Depardieu avoided typecasting and dominated all the dramatic records, from his tortured characters in the films of Pialat to the openly comedians of his collaborations with Bertrand Blier, among which he emphasized the label’s Costume (1986) and Too Beautiful for You (1989) , Comedies with homosexuality as axis that obtained good commercial results.
The enormous success of public and critic of the spring of the hills (1986), of Claude Berri, consolidated to him like the star in the highest grossing.
Adapted from the popular novel by Marcel Pagnol, it was premiered in France in two parts and became one of the greatest hits in the history of French cinema.
A rural drama set in Provence in the early twentieth century, in which Depardieu played the protagonist Jean de Florette, facing the landowners incarnated by Yves Montand and Daniel Auteuil. Soon after, she starred opposite Isabelle Adjani.
Camile Claudel’s passion (1988), director’s debut as director of photography Bruno Nuytten, in which she played the sculptor Auguste Rodin.
Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, was the international consecration of Depardieu. He was awarded the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for this adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s classic.
The difficulty of the original verse was respected by the adaptation of Jean-Claude Carrière and one of the best interpretations of the actor’s career, a spectacular exercise that opened the doors to American industry.
Shortly afterwards he worked on Peter Weir’s Convenience Marriage (1990), his first Hollywood movie, a romantic comedy shot in English. In it gave life to a musician who marries an American (Andie MacDowell) to obtain the residence permit, The green card of the original title of the film ( Green Card ). He was awarded the Golden Globe for best male performance.
Since the early 1990s, Depardieu has become an institution in France and an international star, heir to the French classical values and symbol of the adaptation of these to the new times: Jean Gabin of the last quarter of the twentieth century.
During the last years of his brilliant trajectory he divided his time between his commitments as an actor and his vineyards of the region of Anjou.
Between the best of his works they emphasized Every morning of the world (1992), of Alain Corneau, biography of the musician of century XVII Marin Marais, interpreted in his adolescence by his son Guillaume Depardieu.
The failure of 1492, the conquest of paradise (1992), by Ridley Scott, in which he played Christopher Columbus, partially restrained his international career.
In 1996 he was named knight of the Legion of Honor, the highest French award. A year later he married his second wife, actress Carole Bouquet.
His most popular films of the late 1990s include Randall Wallace’s The Iron Man (1998) and Claude Zidi’s Asterix and Obelix against César (1999), as well as his excellent interpretations for Several television series, such as the adaptations that were made from the work of Alexandre Dumas, father (“The Count of Montecristo”) and Victor Hugo (“The Miserables”).
