He is a face of French cinema who died on October 9, at the age of 93. This is Pierre Vernier, one of the last of the band from the Conservatory of Dramatic Art. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, his face is familiar. He was part of the 1954 class of the Conservatory, alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Rochefort, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Françoise Fabian and Bruno Crémer. It was in 1959 that he made his film debut in Prairie Street with Jean Gabin. He never stopped after that.
Pierre Vernier took on the roles. He rose to fame playing the title role in the soap opera Swiss rolladapted from the work of Ponson du Terrail by Jean-Pierre Decourt.
For the purposes of this character, he learned judo, karate, and horse riding. Pierre Vernier has also been used on television for series and fiction. He notably appeared in The Elder of Ferchaux by Bernard Stora, in the early 2000s where he met one of his friends, Jean-Paul Belmondo. The two men were very close.
Pierre Vernier: a man with cult films
Pierre Vernier has made numerous appearances. Ocould not find it in Is Paris burning? by René Clément,
Stavisky by Alain Resnais, The Guignolo et The Professional by Georges Lautner or Itinerary of a spoiled child de Claude Lelouch. Roles, each more emblematic than the last. At the beginning of the 2000s, he became departmental president of the Association of Visitors to Patients in Hospitals in Gers. A commitment that was particularly close to his heart and to which he devoted his time.
In the 2000s, Pierre Vernier had a string of successes. François Ozon gave him a role in his film Under the sand. We were able to find him in the TV movie Farewell de Gaulle in 2008 and he played the general. This allowed him to be rewarded as best actor at the Luchon and Monaco festivals. In 2016, Pierre Vernier received a second award as he was made an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters and a Knight of the National Order of Merit. Decisions that highlight his immense talent.
Pierre Varnier and Jean-Paul Belmondo: two long-time friends
It was at the Conservatory of Dramatic Art that Pierre Varnier met the man we call Bebel. The two men remained inseparable over the years and were seen together on numerous occasions. “I remember going on stage with Jean-Paul Belmondo who, after a cruel family bereavement, continued the show. My commitment stems from my profession as an actor ”, he confided in the
Dispatch from the South in 2006. Pierre Vernier and his acolytes at the Conservatoire immediately shared an intimate bond.
I was hooked right away with this band. Yet we were very different from each other!” he said in 2019.
