“Jean-Paul Belmondo and Brittany in four episodes – The death of Jean-Paul Belmondo”
jean-paul-belmondo-and-brittany-in-four-episodes-the-death-of-jean-paul-belmondo
Jean-Paul Belmondo was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris, on 9 April 1933.[4][8] Belmondo’s father, Paul Belmondo, was a Pied-Noir sculptor who was born in Algeria of Italian descent, whose parents were of Sicilian and Piedmontese origin.[9][10][11][12] His mother, Sarah Rainaud-Richard, was a painter.[13] As a boy, he was more interested in sport than school, developing a particular interest in boxing and soccer.[14]
Belmondo made his amateur boxing debut on 10 May 1949 in Paris when he knocked out René Desmarais in one round.[4] Belmondo’s boxing career was undefeated, but brief.[14] He won three straight first-round knockout victories from 1949 to 1950.[15] “I stopped when the face I saw in the mirror began to change”, he later said.[14]
He did his National Service in French North Africa[16] where he hit himself with a rifle butt to end his military service.[17]
Belmondo was interested in acting.[18] His late teenage years were spent at a private drama school, and he began performing comedy sketches in the provinces.[18] He studied under Raymond Giraud and then attended the Conservatoire of Dramatic Arts when he was twenty.[4] He studied there for three years.[18] He would probably have won the prize for best actor, but participated in a sketch mocking the school, which offended the jury; this resulted in his only getting an honourable mention, “which nearly set off a riot among his incensed fellow students” in August 1956, according to one report.[14] The incident made front-page news.[18]
Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃pɔl ʃaʁl bɛlmɔ̃do]; 9 April 1933 – 6 September 2021) was a French actor and producer. Initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s, he was a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s onward. His best known credits include Breathless (1960), That Man from Rio (1964), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Borsalino (1970), and The Professional (1981). He was most notable for portraying police officers in action thriller films and became known for his unwillingness to appear in English-language films, despite being heavily courted by Hollywood.[1][2] An undisputed box-office champion like Louis de Funès and Alain Delon of the same period, Belmondo attracted nearly 160 million spectators in his 50-year career. Between 1969 and 1982, he played four times in the most popular films of the year in France: The Brain (1969), Fear Over the City (1975), Animal (1977), Ace of Aces (1982), being surpassed on this point only by Louis de Funès.[3]
During his career, he was called the French counterpart of actors such as James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Humphrey Bogart.[4] Described as an icon and national treasure of France, Belmondo was seen as an influential actor of French cinema and an important figure in shaping European cinema.[5][4][6] In 1989, Belmondo won the César Award for Best Actor for his performance in Itinéraire d’un enfant gâté. He was nominated for two BAFTA Awards throughout his career. In 2011 and then in 2017, he received a lifetime achievement honor: the Palme d’honneur during the Cannes Film Festival and a César d’honneur 42nd César Awards.[7]
