LOUIS DE FUNES. Louis de Funès is the subject of a documentary on France 3 this Friday, entitled “The crazy adventure of Louis de Funès”.
[Mis à jour le 13 janvier 2023 à 20h33] France 3 is dedicating a documentary to Louis de Funes this January 13, 2023. From 9:10 p.m., moviegoers can come back to the actor’s journey in The crazy adventure of Louis de Funès. This documentary is also broadcast just a few days before the 40th anniversary of the actor’s death.
Louis de Funès died on January 17, 1983, when he was 68 years old. The actor was then on vacation in the mountains with his family. He decides to go to bed when he is the victim of a heart attack. He was pronounced dead that same day at 8:30 p.m., after being transported to the emergency room of the Nantes University Hospital Center. Louis de Funès had already had two heart attacks in 1975, weakening his health. He was buried in the cemetery at Cellier, in Loire-Atlantique.
Louis de Funès was born on July 31, 1914 in Courbevoie to Spanish parents. In the 1930s, he saw odd jobs and decided at the age of 28 to become an actor. He enters the Simon course. His comrade Daniel Gélin allowed him to obtain his first film role (La Tentation de Barbizon in 1945). He multiplied small roles until the early 1950s. In 1953, he played in the magazine Ah! Les Belles Bacchantes which reinforces its reputation.
His comic profile became clearer with the films Le Mouton à cinq Pattes and Poisson d’Avril in which he played opposite Fernandel and Bourvil. It was his role in La Traversée de Paris in 1956 that defined the cowardly and angry character he would play in his future films. Recognition came to Louis de Funès when he won the Grand Prix du rire in 1957. The actor continued his rise, mostly in the theater at the end of the 1950s with the plays Let’s Make a Dream in 1957 and Oscar in 1958.
In the early 1960s, he confirmed his status as a great comedian with Pouic Pouic in 1963 and began a rich collaboration with Jean Girault who staged him in particular in the Gendarmes series in 1964. He multiplied the successes signed Gérard Oury (Le Corniaud in 1965, La Grande Vadrouille in 1966 and La Folie des Grandeurs in 1971). In the 1970s, Louis de Funès chained theatrical performances and filming. Overworked, he suffered two heart attacks in 1975. Despite everything, he continued to tour (L’Aile ou la Cuisse in 1976, Le Gendarme et les Extra-terrestres in 1979, La Soupe au Choux in 1981). He received an honorary César in 1980 and made a last film, Le Gendarme et les Gendarmettes in 1982 before succumbing to a heart attack on January 27, 1983 near Nantes.