Eternal Jean-Claude Dusse in “Les Bronzés”, a major actor in comic cinema in the 80s before moving towards dramatic roles and a career as a director, Michel Blanc died at the age of 72, on the night of Thursday to Friday , sparking a torrent of reactions. The actor, who saw himself as a “distressed clown“, had a heart attack and was transported to a Paris hospital where he died.
“Damn, Michel… What have you done to us…“, reacted on Instagram Gérard Jugnot, his accomplice from the Splendid comedy troupe. On RTLthe latter mentioned “anaphylactic shock, an allergy to a medication” after a routine medical examination, which was confirmed by Michel Blanc’s entourage.
Coming from a modest family, Michel Blanc has long embodied in the cinema the archetype of the loser, bald, skinny and mustachioed as exasperating as he is endearing, notably in “Marche à l’ombre” (1984), which he directed. But above all, in the film “Les Bronzés” then “Les Bronzés sont du ski” and finally, more recently, in “Les Bronzés 3: amis pour la vie”.
This Sunday, October 6 at 9:05 p.m., TF1 has chosen to pay tribute to Michel Blanc by rebroadcasting the film released in theaters in 1978 which revealed the Splendid gang. Before that, La Provence invites you to test your knowledge on this cult comedy (but also on the rest of the trilogy) in this module below. (If the quiz doesn’t work, you can find it here).
Hardworking, perfectionist, Michel Blanc knew how to use his complexes and his writing talent to explore disenchantment and shape the characters of his films, notably “Grosse Fatigue” (1994), about the throes of fame, and the acerbic comedy “Embrassez whoever you want” (2002), which he directed.
France 2 in particular rebroadcast “I find you very handsome” on Friday in the first part of the evening, a surprise success in which the actor plays a widowed farmer looking for a wife, and France 3 will broadcast “Grosse fatigue” on Monday evening. For his latest role, Michel Blanc had again opted for a serious register: “La Cache”, adaptation of the novel by Christophe Boltanski about the trauma of a Jewish family forced into hiding to escape the Nazis, is due out in 2025.
