A cult comedy par excellence, the saga of the Gendarmes experienced some tensions behind the scenes and particularly an irreversible estrangement between Louis de Funès and Jean Lefebvre.
Hilarious on screen, Louis de Funès is not reputed to have had an easy character on film sets. His relationships with Jean Marais (“Fantomas”), Fernandel (“The five-legged sheep”) or even Jean Gabin (“The tattooed”) paid the price. The French comedian also fell out with another ace of comedy with a strong temperament: Jean Lefebvre, with whom he shared the poster for the “Gendarmes de Saint-Tropez” saga.
During the filming of the cult comic franchise, the relationship between the two actors could be explosive. But it was especially during the preview of the film “Le Gendarme se marie”, in October 1968, that the tension reached its climax. Lefebvre discovered there with astonishment that certain scenes he had played had been cut during editing. He will then accuse Louis de Funès, decision-maker on many aspects of the film, of having demanded his cuts in the final cut, and will even complain about it in the media.
The director of the Gendarmes will be obliged to intervene. Jean Girault will then accuse the interpreter of Lucien Fougasse of being “mediocre” in the daily “Paris-Jour”. He will repeatedly overwhelm his actor, accused of arriving late, sometimes drunk, of forgetting his text or of performing catastrophic performances in front of the camera.
A chilling reunion
Jean Lefebvre will try to reestablish his truth in his autobiography (“Why does it only happen to me?”, Michel Lafon) in 1984 and will recount his icy reunion with Louis de Funès “years later, in a cocktail”. “He was there, with his wife, and he was watching me from afar, without saying anything,” said the actor. “I went up to him and forced him to greet me. His wife refused to hold out her hand to me. So I forced an explanation, because it seemed to me that this problem had to be solved once and for all. once and for all.”
“Listen, Louis, when I attacked you publicly, I was mad with anger. I was starting to have a pet name and by arbitrarily deleting my scenes, you did me wrong. It seems to me that the least of things would have been to warn me, to have the courage to warn me”, would then have let go of the actor to the monster of comic cinema. According to Jean Lefebvre, De Funès would then have remained silent for a few moments, then would have stood up saying: “You are right”.