It was on a continuous news channel that Dominique Lavanant learned of the death of Michel Blanc this Friday morning. “I can’t believe it and I still don’t understand. I’m in shock. I’m lost, she said. Michel wasn’t sick, even though he had a heart murmur since I’ve known him. Death scared him so much. I have rarely seen anyone feel such fear of death. But there, he died in the arms of his partner with whom he was emotionally happy and that’s already a lot. »
“Michel was a wonderful author-director-performer,” recalls the actress, who played numerous films alongside Michel Blanc: “Les Bronzés” 1,2 and 3, “Papy fait de la resistance”, “La Gueule on the other”, “Madame Édouard”… “Between Michel and I, it was an absolutely incredible friendship that united us, with moments of exceptional laughter and very interesting listening”, says Dominique Lavanant.
“He loved himself a lot without really loving himself”
“Michel also sometimes had his faults. We shouldn’t make a saint of him either, she smiles. He loved himself a lot without really loving himself. He loved himself in front of others but we could see, through the way he spoke to us, that he didn’t love himself very much. I think his physique caused him some problems, but that was no longer the case since he was madly in love. However, he played with his physique, even if it may have annoyed him. Too often, people who passed him said: “Hey, it’s Jean-Claude Dusse” (the character played by Michel Blanc in “Les Bronzés”, Editor’s note) and that bothered him a little because he did so much other things. He was a character with a physique that was not Delon but he was so intelligent, full of humor, curious and so demanding, both with others and with himself. »
“The worst thing in life and old age is starting to lose all your friends”
Dominique Lavanant regularly received Michel Blanc in his former house in Plougourvest (29). “And there, the two of us, we did Breton Brittany: we went to listen to the Lann-Bihoué bagad, have a drink, we walked on the beach…”.
“I have just turned 80,” emphasizes Dominique Lavanant, “and what I find worst in life and old age is starting to lose all my friends. I think of Jean-Pierre Marielle, Michel Serrault, Jean Rochefort, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Jean Carmet, Jean Poiret, Bernard Blier… And today, I miss them. It’s scary how much I miss them. »
