France TV (DR) / INA (DR)
By Elsa Girard-Basset | Web journalist
A true monument of French cinema, Jean-Paul Belmondo has left behind an enormous legacy as much through his films as through his appearance, his charisma, and his unique way of being. As mischievous as he is seductive, “Bébel” has almost never lost his famous smile. Moreover, when a kissing scene was requested of him, he had a rather crude technique… This is in any case what the late Mylène Demongeot revealed.
The survivors of the golden age of cinema of the 1960s and 1970s can unfortunately be counted on the fingers of one hand, and each year seems to rob the French of one of their youthful figures. This is how between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Mylène Demongeot both passed away, aged 88 and 87 respectively.
Friends in life, the two actors, reflections of an era, played opposite each other in “Tendre rogue” by Jean Becker in 1966, and, more anecdotally, in the film “Les Dom Juan de la Côte d’ Azur” four years earlier. It is therefore with infinite sadness that Demongeot, who was still among us, welcomed the death of the “Magnificent”.
In tears at the microphone of France 2, she then explained full of modesty and emotion:
We didn’t work much together, we only made two films together, but we were very, very friends. I always loved that man. I’m glad you called me a little later because otherwise you would see me crying. He wouldn’t like us to cry at all, he was a happy Jean-Paul!
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Jean-Paul Belmondo’s joke during kisses at the cinema
And because Alain Delon’s friend would have wanted us to remember the good times, Mylène Demongeot returned to the microphone of “Sud Radio” with a schoolboy and rather funny anecdote. Indeed, “Bébel” has a habit of spicing up his kisses with actresses in the cinema, in the literal sense of the term! Judge instead:
He was an actor friend. We played together, we had fun, he was happy! He loved kissing you with garlic in your mouth to see if you were going to freak out or not! He was a schoolboy joker!
Besides this nice anecdote, it is the man that the actress had remembered and appreciated:
I remember a delightful man with whom I laughed a lot. When I filmed with him, we did the 400 shots together. He was a huge professional, behind the joker side, the joker side. It’s a monument, it’s a part of cinema that is disappearing.
A joker and joker in life, which did not prevent him from playing certain darker characters wonderfully well, Jean-Paul Belmondo left fond memories for all his peers in the cinema world. And a huge life in the hearts of the French, who delight in the slightest rebroadcast of his films.
