Death of actor Pierre Vernier, faithful friend of Belmondo

The actor Pierre Vernier, member of the “Bande du Conservatoire” in the 1950s with Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Marielle and Jean Rochefort, died on Wednesday at the age of 93, AFP learned on Saturday from his relatives.

A prolific actor, he had appeared in around sixty films, including a good number of popular successes alongside his friend Bébel, such as “The Professional” (1981) or “Itinerary of a Spoiled Child” (1988, in the role of a priest). “Be careful, I also exist without him!”, he joked in 2001 about the man he considered to be “professional conscience incarnate”.

Pierre Vernier was one of those actors whose name is not necessarily known to the general public, but whose face and appearance – tall elegant stature of a gentleman or bourgeois, sweet dreamy face and brown lock on the forehead – are to him familiar. With Françoise Fabian, he was one of the last surviving members of the “Bande du Conservatoire”, essentially formed by students of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Paris in the early 1950s. Besides Belmondo, its core, it notably included Jean Rochefort, Claude Rich, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Bruno Cremer and Annie Girardot.

This group of friends eager for renewal and modernity in the aftermath of the war then stood out, both on stage and in town, with their outbursts against the system of the prestigious Conservatory which they considered dusty.

Born Pierre Louis Rayer in Saint-Jean-d’Angély, in Charente-Maritime, and died in Vic-Fezensac, in Gers, according to his relatives, Pierre Vernier had worked with great film directors, including Henri Verneuil and Joseph Losey (in “Monsieur Klein” with Alain Delon in 1976). A horse lover, like Jean Rochefort, Pierre Vernier was very active on television. In 2008, he played the role of General De Gaulle, for which he received several acting awards.

On the small screen, it was the soap opera “Rocambole” and the role of the eponymous vigilante that made him famous in 1964. In the theater, Pierre Vernier had played under the direction of Raymond Rouleau, Georges Wilson, Jean-Louis Barrault or Roger Planchon.

He “marked generations of spectators with his appearance and his familiar voice”, reacted the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, by paying tribute to him on the social network X.

“The long silhouette with the benevolent gaze of Pierre Vernier is also fading,” wrote on the same social network the former president of the Cannes Festival, Gilles Jacob, referring to “the 1954 Conservatory Band.”

Knight of the National Order of Merit, Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters, Pierre Vernier was very involved until the end of his life in the associative and charitable sector, underlined those around him.