Acting
Aug 27, 1940
Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France
Philippe Léotard
Acting
Biography
Philippe Léotard (his full name was Ange Philippe Paul André Léotard-Tomasi; 28 August 1940 – 25 August 2001) was a French actor, poet and singer. He was born in Nice, one of seven children - four girls, then three boys, of which he was the oldest - and was the brother of politician François Léotard. His childhood was normal except for an illness (rheumatic fever) which struck him and forced him to spend days in bed during which time he read a great many books. He was particularly fond of the poets - Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Blaise Cendrars. He met Ariane Mnouchkine at the Sorbonne and in 1964. Together with students of the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, they formed the Parisian avant-garde stage ensemble, Théâtre du Soleil. He played Philippe, the tormented son of a woman with terminal illness in the 1974 drama film La Gueule ouverte by the controversial director Maurice Pialat. He won a César Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1982 movie La Balance. One of his few English-language roles was a cameo in the 1973 thriller The Day of the Jackal and he co-starred as "Jacques" in the 1975 John Frankenheimer movie French Connection II which starred Gene Hackman and Fernando Rey, (sequel to The French Connection). Léotard died of respiratory failure in Paris on 25 August 2001, three days before his 61st birthday. He was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris. Description above from the Wikipedia article Philippe Léotard, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Feature Films (73)
Parisian everyman Antoine Doinel has married his sweetheart Christine Darbon, and the newlyweds have set up a cozy domestic life of selling flowers and giving violin lessons while Antoine fitfully works on his long-gestating novel. As Christine becomes pregnant with the couple's first child, Antoine finds himself enraptured with a young Japanese beauty. The complications change the course of their relationship forever.
Bed and Board
"Popeye" Doyle travels to Marseilles to find Alain Charnier, the drug smuggler that eluded him in New York.
French Connection II
A manufacturer of furniture sees his business go down and decides to rob banks to pay his staff. Het gets romantically involved with one of his victims.
The Wonderful Crook
Young sociologist Stanislas Previne is writing a thesis on criminal women, so he visits Camille Bliss in prison for an interview. Accused of murdering her husband and her lover, Camille recounts her life and love affairs.
A Gorgeous Kid Like Me
The film follows the exploits of Jacques, a car-mechanic turned pro-thief, and his Jewish co-conspirator Simon as their robberies, beginning well before the Second World War, take on a political coloration under the occupation.
The Good and the Bad
An international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to kill President Charles de Gaulle, with a dedicated gendarme on the assassin’s trail.
The Day of the Jackal
Television & Series (11)
When the SS Festivale sets sail from New York to France, its 3,000 passengers include Pulitzer Prize-winning author Harold Columbine and 146 members of the Church of the Cosmic Path, led by Father Craig Dunleavy, their charismatic messiah. Seizing control of the ship, Dunleavy demands $70 million in gold, intending to kill everyone onboard once it's paid. Without knowing which passengers are cultists and warned that 12 will die for every hijacker harmed, Columbine and the captain search for a way to save 3,000 lives before Dunleavy makes good on his threat. Based on a novel by screenwriter Ernest Lehman, this mini-series was broadcast over three nights in November 1979.
