the essential
Michel Blanc died of a heart attack at the age of 72 last night. The Splendid troupe of which he was a part expressed their “immense pain”. The actor’s life was not necessarily known to everyone.
Cinema is in mourning. Michel Blanc is dead. The actor revealed by “Les Bronzés” died at the age of 72 following a heart attack on Thursday evening. He was taken to hospital in serious condition due to an allergic reaction during a medical examination. Michel Blanc had played in more than 70 films, first in a comic register then more dramatic. He subsequently directed several successful feature films such as “Marche à l’ombre”, “Grosse fatigue” and “Kiss whoever you want”.
If the announcement of the death of Michel Blanc moved many French people who appreciated him, the actor’s life was not always well known.
Born into a modest background
Michel Blanc was born in Courbevoie in the Paris region in 1952. Coming from a modest background, he was the pampered son of a mover and a typist. He spent his childhood in the working-class suburb of Puteaux. He ate at his grandparents’ house every day.
The Splendid, a troupe born in high school
It was at high school that the Splendid troupe was formed. Michel Blanc shares the benches of the Pasteur high school in Neuilly-sur-Seine with Thierry Lhermitte, Christian Clavier and Gérard Jugnot. They would become his future comedy partners. The Splendid troupe performed its first sketches in café theaters. The Splendid troupe also reacted with one voice to express “their immense pain”.
AFP
The role of the loser made him successful
Michel Blanc remains the unforgettable Jean-Claude Dusse in the “Les Bronzés” saga. A bald, skinny, mustachioed man, as exasperating as he is endearing. A loser role that he also played in “Come to my place, I live with a friend” or “Walk in the shade”. “At the time, we wrote characters who were quite close to us. Jean-Claude Dusse was clearly for me,” he explained at the time.
Also read:
Death of Michel Blanc: 10 cult scenes from his greatest cinema successes
He wanted to break his image
Despite the success, Michel Blanc fears that this role of loser will continue him throughout his career. He is the first to leave the Splendid troupe. Then he chooses roles to break the image that sticks to him. He plays the role of a transvestite in “Tenue de soir” in 1986 or the disturbing “Monsieur Hire” in 1989.
A perfectionist actor
Making people laugh and moving people is work for an actor. Michel Blanc was known for being a perfectionist and being a hard worker when it came to his roles or the making of his films. He knew how to use his complexes and his writing talent to explore disenchantment and shape the characters in his films.
“An anguished clown”
Michel Blanc defined himself as “an anguished clown”. “I am not at all a sad clown but an anxious clown,” he said in an interview with Telerama. “But who is not anxious? What is the human condition? Not knowing why we are here, not knowing how we are going to die.”
He released a 45 rpm
Michel Blanc had a brief stint in music. In 1985, he released the 45 rpm “Le mec plus ultra”, written by Gérard Presgurvic and Patrick Michel. Sales did not devastate the Top 50 rankings.
He didn’t want children
Michel Blanc shared the life of the stylist Ramatoulaye Diop, originally from Senegal, for around fifteen years. The couple had no children. “We thought it would be crazy. I decided too late. It would have been ‘your grandfather is coming to pick you up from school’. I wanted to avoid that.”
He lived with Lio
At the end of the 80s, Michel Blanc had a love affair with the singer Lio. The two artists stayed together for a year and a half. “He’s a real gentleman, he’s a man of extreme seduction. I experienced one of the most beautiful love stories with him,” the singer confided on the set of the show “C to you” on France 5 in 2022.
Pierre Niney’s vocation is Michel Blanc
The actor Pierre Niney played Michel Blanc’s son in “Nos 18 ans” in 2008. “I knew I wanted to be an actor thanks to this kind of encounter”, he wrote, paying tribute to Michel Blanc . Pierre Niney remembers him as a “huge actor, funny and profound, simple and touching”.
