Died at the age of 53 in 2005, Jacques Villeret remains an iconic actor in French cinema, alternating comedies and dramas with sensitivity.
Jacques Villeret left us on January 28, 2005. The actor revealed both in French comedies (Cabbage soup, idiot dinner) that dramas (Great gardens, the children of the marsh) died in Evreux in Eure. He was then 53 years old. But what is the actor dead? The latter died of an internal hemorrhage, linked to liver disease. This is not the first time that the actor had health problems, since he had been hospitalized five years before his emergency death, later canceling his theatrical performances at the time.
Rumors also suggest that the death of the actor would be linked to an alcohol addiction. According to her former wife, the actress Irina Tarassov whom he separated after twenty years of common life, Jacques Villeret would have fought for many years against alcoholism, according to what she writes in the book One day everything will be fine. This version is nevertheless disputed by relatives of the actor, notably his sister Ghislaine Villeret. She notably denounced “lies” concerning her brother.
Youth of Jacques Villeret
Born on February 6, 1951 in Tours, Jacques Villeret had a happy childhood during which he became aware of his comic potential very early on with his classmates. He thus nourished the project to become an actor. In adolescence, he is marked by the revelation of a family secret: he discovers that his real father is not the one he believes. He later kept a deep injury. School studies completed, he passed through the Tours Conservatory, before joining the National Conservatory. There is in particular for professor Louis Seigner. In the early 1970s, he continued comedies and vaudevilles within the company Marcelle Tassancourt.
His film career
His beginnings in the cinema were marked by the meeting of two directors who will remain faithful to him: Yves Boisset, who hired him to interpret a called from the Algerian War in the Drama RAS in 1972, and Claude Lelouchwho chooses him for an appearance in a lifetime (1974). This even Claude Lelouch serves as a revealer to the actor by offering him two leading roles in The good and the bad guys In 1976, then in Robert and Robert who earned him a César for the best supporting male role in 1979. Fortful collaboration: the two men worked together on nine feature films.
Alternating author’s comedies (nothing is going well by Jean-Michel Ribes, 1979) and popular films (Stupid but disciplined From Claude Zidi, 1979), Jacques Villeret is built an image of a fun and lunar little round, quite far from what he is in life. He will entrust this subject in the press: “I am a perfectionist to the point of becoming obsessive. To make comic is moderately fun: if I don’t have what I want, if it does not fall to the millimeter, I can disinforce and prick disproportionate angers“(L’Express of 06/11/2003). He seems to have no limits, accepting to go to the wacky and the heavy comedy in extraterrestrial in Cabbage soup In 1981 whose huge success made him definitively famous. He also does not hesitate to put on the skin of characters from medium French, a little stupid, covered and shy in Circulate there’s nothing to do de Patrice Leconte (1983), exuberant in Grandpa makes resistance by Jean-Marie Poiré (1983), or the village idiot in Summer Summer Summer by Gérard Krawczyck (1987). Jacques Villeret also makes surprising appearances in more hermetic feature films (First name Carmen of Jean-Luc Godard1983).
The César for best actor for Cons dinner
The actor does not abandon the boards and sets up several one man show, like the double bass drawn from the work of Patrick Süskind in 1990. His career suffered from cyclical depressions which push him towards alcohol and who Sometimes forced to cancel theatrical performances. After a small cinematographic vacuum in the mid -90s, the actor returned with fanfare with Cons dinnerthat he had played previously in the theater, and whose triumph recovered his career with the added bonus of a César for best actor in 1999. Very solicited, he lets his dramatic talent over the occasion of films such as Marais children by Jean Becker (1999). This director will direct him again on A crime in paradise (2001) and Appalling gardens (2003). Jacques Villeret continues success (Malabar Princess And Fist viper In 2004, Iznogoud in 2005), up to the shooting of Gray Likes Yves Angelo and The godparents From Frédéric Forestier, his last feature film.
He died of an internal hemorrhage on January 28, 2005 in Evreux, at the age of 53.