Michel Blanc

Biography: life and films

Michel Blanc is a French film actor and director. He was born in Courbevoie, France on 16 April 1952. He began his career as a member of the comedy troupe Équipe du Splendid, which comprised his high school friends Josianne Balasko, Christian Clavier, Thierry Lhermitte, Gérard Jugnot and Marie-Anne Chazel, all of whom would become prominent actors in their own right. The troupe performed café-théâtre plays, two of which were to become cult films: Les Bronzés (1978) and Le Père Noël est une ordure (1982). Blanc's character in Les Bronzés, an ineffectual but likeable Don Juan, is one that stuck with him for much of his early career, including a series of films he made with Patrice Leconte, such as Viens chez moi, j'habite chez une copine (1980).

In 1984, Michel Blanc made an auspicious directorial debut with Marche à l'ombre, a hit comedy in which he played opposite another rising star, Gérard Lanvin. Bertrand Blier's subversive comedy Tenue de soirée (1986) ejected him from the comfortable groove he had created for himself, and his sympathetic portrayal of a bisexual loser won him a Best Actor award at Cannes. In 1989, Blanc was able to extend his repertoire further in Patrice Leconte Monsieur Hire (1989), as a much darker version of the comedy loners he had played hitherto.

In the decades that followed, Blanc's by now familiar screen persona kept cropping up in a diverse mix of film comedies and dramas, and he still found time to direct three successful films: Grosse fatigue (1994), Mauvaise passe (1999) and Embrassez qui vous voudrez (2002). Recently, he has distinguished himself in two film dramas by André Téchiné: Les Témoins (2007) and La Fille du RER (2009), and in Alfred Lot's Une petite zone de turbulences (2010) he turned in one of his best comedy performances, as a chronic hypochondriac. In 2012, Michel Blanc received his first César (having been previously nominated seven times) for his supporting role in Pierre Schoeller's L'Exercice de l'État (2011); that same year he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour.

Filmography