Jean Rochefort
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.
Filmography (173 Appearances)
Exception culturelle, la bataille qui a sauvé le cinéma français
L'Œuvre invisible
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
Rochefort, Marielle, Noiret: Les copains d'abord
Archives secrètes
Jean Rochefort, l'irrésistible
Je ne sais pas si c'est tout le monde
Belmondo ou le goût du risque
Belmondo, le magnifique
À la recherche de... Pierre Richard
Belmondo by Belmondo
Les Boloss des belles lettres
Les Rats
April and the Extraordinary World
Florida
Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart
Jappeloup
... à la française !
Asterix & Obelix: God Save Britannia
The Artist and the Model
Square
Belmondo, il était une fois le beau monde
Belmondo, itinéraire...
Titeuf
The Great Restaurant
Agathe Cléry
Bien des choses
I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster
The Key
Tell No One: The B-Side
Mr. Bean's Holiday
Chez Maupassant
Twice Upon a Time
Tell No One
On n'est pas couché
Hell
Akoibon
Lucky Luke and the Daltons
Les bottes
RRRrrrr!!!
Heureux ?
Saint-Germain ou La négociation
The Car Keys
J.S. Bach: The Music, The Life, The Legend
Pierre et le Loup
Man on the Train
Blanche
Lost in La Mancha
Honolulu Baby
The Closet
Delphine Seyrig, portrait d'une comète
Speaking of Buñuel
Rembrandt
Wind with the Gone
Vivement dimanche
The Count of Monte Cristo
Le serpent a mangé la grenouille
Barracuda
Never Ever
Clara et son juge
Ridicule
The Grand Dukes
Palace
Les Bœuf-carottes
Tom est tout seul
Prêt-à-Porter
Once a Year, Every Year
Next Time the Fire
Lost in Transit
Wild Target
Tango
L'Atlantide
From Time to Time
The Long Winter
Le Bal des casse-pieds
Amoureux fou
My Mother's Castle
The Hairdresser's Husband
Stars 90
The Other Woman
I'm the King of the Castle
My First 40 Years
Nulle part ailleurs
Tandem
Le Moustachu
La Galette du roi
L'Énigme blanche
Victoires de la musique
Volley for a Black Buffalo
New Year's Eve At Bob's
Frankenstein 90
The Dogs of Jerusalem
Un dimanche de flics
A Friend of Vincent
The Big Brother
L'Indiscrétion
Champs-Elysées
Birgit Haas Must Be Killed
Un étrange voyage
I Hate Blondes
I Sent a Letter to My Love
French Postcards
Courage fuyons
The Skirt Chaser
Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma
Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?
Grandison
We Will All Meet in Paradise
Drummer-Crab
The Devil in the Box
Pardon Mon Affaire
Cérémonie des César
Femmes Fatales
The Toilets Were Closed from the Inside
30 millions d'amis
Death Rite
A Happy Divorce
Isabelle and Lust
Numéro un
Innocents with Dirty Hands
Let Joy Reign Supreme
Les Rendez-vous du dimanche
The Return of the Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe
Till Marriage Do Us Part
Spécial cinéma
The Phantom of Liberty
How to Make Good When One Is a Jerk and a Crybaby
The Watchmaker of St. Paul
Hail the Artist
Mean Frank and Crazy Tony
Lovely Swine
The Conspiracy
The Inheritor
The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe
Hearth Fires
The Egg
Midi trente
Le Grand Échiquier
Le Misanthrope
Céleste
La Liberté en croupe
The Time to Die
The Devil by the Tail
For a Distant Love
Don't Play with Martians
La Plaie et le Couteau, Charles Baudelaire
Two Weeks in September
The Sunday of Life
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
Angelique and the King
Up to His Ears
Angelique: The Road to Versailles
Le Naïf amoureux
Dim Dam Dom
Beautiful Families
Angelique
Les Pieds nickelés
Trouble Among Widows
The Blockhead Fair
La Porteuse de pain
Symphony for a Massacre
Outpost in Indo-china
La Nuit des rois
The Iron Mask
Sun in Your Eyes
Cartouche
The Marriage of Figaro
Captain Fracasse
Leon Garros Is Looking for His Friend
Vingt mille lieues sur la Terre
A Bullet in the Gun Barrel
The Queen of Spades
Meeting in Paris