The secrets of Michel Blanc, the anguished clown of French cinema

Michel Blanc has always made sure to be as discreet in the media as he is in town. He nevertheless agreed, from time to time, to indulge, on television, in the game of personal confidences. Madelen invites you to discover or rediscover two sequences where, interviewed by Daniel Picouly and Thierry Ardisson, he opens this heart which suddenly stopped beating on Thursday, during a routine medical examination. It evokes, among other things, the birth of Jean-Claude Dusse, immortalized in the three films of Tanned. One morning, while shaving, he said to himself that growing a mustache would truly give him, in his own words, “an idiot’s face”. He talks about it to his friends at Splendid who burst out laughing, but to make fun of an idea that they don’t support. He insists, and his gang ends up giving him the green light. No one will ever regret it.

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He also confides that unlike his character and a legend that has long stuck to his skin, he made a lot of connections with women whose age rarely exceeded 25 years. His natural shyness having disappeared when notoriety came, he experienced moments of passion which did not cease the day after a separation made inevitable by an eternal anguish making it impossible to live with. After a breakup, Michel Blanc preserved the memory of the one he loved for a long time by sprinkling himself every morning with her eau de toilette. Furthermore, with an almost unhealthy jealousy, he has never tolerated the idea that someone could love a man other than him.

Also read“If you leave, I’ll leave you”: Michel Blanc’s cult lines

The one that Marie-Anne Chazel affectionately nicknamed Napoleon, because of his size, also fought long battles to convince producers that on screen, his form of humor was closer to that of Woody Allen than to Louis de Funès or Dany Boon. The triumph of Walk in the shadowwhich marked his directorial debut, made him think for a long time. He absolutely did not expect this comedy to pass the six million admissions mark. In the process, he received a deluge of proposals which he took the time to study, weighing the pros and cons. He could have made a lot of money by accepting even a few of them. He refused almost all of them for the sake of advancement. He feared that ten years later the Bronzedwe assimilate him exclusively to this type of role.

This cost him two years of crossing the desert. He assumed them, in his soul and conscience, before a “good bearded fairy” telephones him one morning to offer to give the answer to Gérard Depardieu and Miou-Miou in Evening wear. Bernard Giraudeau had refused the role written, originally for him. The director was not offended, quite the contrary. He considered, in hindsight, that it was a bad idea. This is how Michel Blanc made a professional dream come true, until then buried deep within himself.

Also readActor Michel Blanc has died at the age of 72

The Best Actor Award that he received in 1986 definitively established his image: that of an actor capable of making people laugh despite himself, through characters of undeniable sincerity, finding themselves in situations at the worst times, the one where everything goes wrong. Very tired as well as Kiss whoever you want confirmed his talent as a director while I find you very beautiful allowed him to show that he was also very comfortable in the romantic register. He thus acquired international recognition which he evoked, with a smile on his lips, through the reaction of the Japanese where, in the 2000s, he went to present a comedy. The journalists, convinced that he had exclusively played dramatic characters, starting with Mr. Hirebelieved that it was his first foray into the world of laughter. In this journey which he considered far from over, he only admitted one regret, having agreed, in 1985, to record, for fun, a song entitled The most ultra guy. His only false note.

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