
Died at 96
male
Jean Raoul Robert Rochefort (29 April 1930 – 9 October 2017) was a French actor. He received many accolades during his career, including an Honorary César in 1999. Rochefort was born on 29 April 1930 in Paris, France, to Breton parents. Jean Rochefort was not born in Dinan, but his parents were living there. He was educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen. Rochefort was nineteen years old when he entered the Centre d'Art Dramatique de la rue Blanche. Later he joined the Conservatoire National. After completing his national service in 1953, he worked with the Compagnie Grenier Hussenot as a theatre actor for seven years. There he was noted for his ability to play both drama and comedy. He then became a television and cinema actor, and also worked as director. After some supporting roles in Cartouche, Captain Fracasse and in Marvelous Angelique, Rochefort played his first big role with Annie Girardot as his wife and Claude Jade as his daughter in Hearth Fires in 1972. In this drama, he starred as a man who leaves his family for ten years before returning. In this film he played at 41 years old a father of adult children (the young Claude Jade was already 23). To appear older, he grew a moustache, his trademark, which he later removed only once, in 1996 for Ridicule. Four years after Hearth Fires he was the leading star of the midlife crisis comedy Pardon Mon Affaire as a man who risks his married life with Danièle Delorme for an affair with Anny Duperey. Thanks to the success of this film, Rochefort became very popular. In 1972, he starred opposite Pierre Richard as Chief of Counter-Espionage, Louis Toulouse, in the Yves Robert comedy Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire, a role he reprised in the 1974 sequel Le Retour du grand blond, also directed by Robert. In 1998, he starred as "Fernand de Morcerf" opposite Gerard Depardieu in the mini-series Le Comte de Monte Cristo. In the eighties, he became the narrator of the French version of Welcome to Pooh Corner, replacing Laurie Main. This made him popular with children at the time and Disney hired him to record several audio versions of their classic movies. In the 1990s, he returned to comedy with Les Grands Ducs where he played alongside two other actors of his generation with a similar career, Philippe Noiret and Jean-Pierre Marielle. He was set to play the lead role in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, after being found as "the perfect Quixote" by director Terry Gilliam. Rochefort learned to speak English just for the part. Unfortunately, amongst other production problems, he began suffering from a herniated disc. Unable to film for months, production was cancelled. A documentary, Lost in La Mancha, was made about the failed production. In 1960, he married Alexandra Moscwa, with whom he had two children: Marie (1962) and Julien (1965). With actress-filmmaker Nicole Garcia, he also had a son Pierre. Through his second marriage with Françoise Vidal, he had two children, Louise (1990) and Clémence (1992). ... Description above from the Wikipedia article Jean Rochefort, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Jean Rochefort

Doctor Septimus Pretorius
for Doctor Septimus Pretorius in Van Helsing 3
Suggested by jeanpaulvalley

I imagine what another sequel to "Van Helsing" movie could have given, in order to make a trilogy. Two years after the events of Sleepy Hollow, Van Helsing and his secret friends go to Egypt, country of origin of Ahmanet, because a new threat has just awakened. Because of the mysterious Doctor Pretorius and his accomplices, the terrible Scorpion King, one of the most powerful beings in the world, has been released after millennia of imprisonment. In addition to these already known "monster buddies", Gabriel will be helped by an egyptologist, who seems linked to a part of his past, Mina Murray, who hides a dark secret. He will also be helped by the American special agent Lawrence Talbot, who is actually a powerful Werewolf using a Pretorius serum to keep his human form for a time. Finally, the mad scientist creates a "Bride" for Frankenstein's Creature, hoping to control the Modern Prometheus, but it backfires. Today, more than ever, Van Helsing knows very well that the "monsters" are the only ones who can really save this world !