Place of Birth: Paris, France
Francis Blanche
François Jean Blanche, known as "Francis Blanche" (20 July 1921 – 6 July 1974) was a French actor, singer, humorist and author. He was a very popular figure on stage, radio and in films, during the 1950s and 1960s. His two daughters, Barbara & Dominique, are artists with their studios in Eze. Blanche was born in an artistic family, mainly of stage actors—including his father Louis Blanche and his uncle, Emmanuel Blanche, who was a painter—. He completed his secondary schooling at fourteen, the youngest in France to do so at the time. In the 1940s and 1950s, Blanche was part of Robert Dhéry's theatrical company Les Branquignols, with whom he played in the film Ah! Les belles bacchantes, starring Robert Dhéry, Colette Brosset (Dhéry's then-wife), and Louis de Funès; directed by Jean Loubignac in 1954. Blanche teamed up with Pierre Dac to form a comic duo best remembered for Le Sâr Rabindranath Duval, a sketch about a phony and nonsensical Indian clairvoyant and guru (1957). They also created a popular and equally nonsensical radiophonic series, loosely based on a highly improbable espionage and conspiration plot, Malheur aux barbus, which was broadcast on Paris Inter in 213 episodes from 1951 to 1952. The same plot and characters were revived on Europe 1 in a series called Signé Furax, enjoying no less than 1,034 daily episodes between 1956 and 1960. Both broadcasts were phenomenal audience successes in the pre-television era. Blanche was also renowned for broadcasting phone pranks, in which he entertained listeners by making the most improbable situations sound plausible. He wrote poems, and the lyrics of 673 songs. On stage, he acted in Tartuffe and Néron and, in 1955, Chevalier du Ciel, an operetta by Luis Mariano at the Gaîté-Lyrique theatre. Blanche also enjoyed a successful cinematographic career, both as an actor and scriptwriter. He appeared as a hard-headed German colonel ("Obersturmführer Schulz") opposite Brigitte Bardot in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre (1959). He was one of the favourite actors of French filmmaker Georges Lautner, and played Maître Folace (a shady solicitor counselling a colourful gangster mob) in Les Tontons flingueurs (1963). Blanche also appeared in Boris Vassilief's Les Barbouzes (1964). He delighted in parodying classical music, adapting famous works such as Schubert's "Die Forelle" (The Trout) into a crazy and slightly risqué piece about a 16-year-old romantic girl obsessed with Schubert's song to the point of giving birth to a live trout while performing it on her piano. Similarly, he turned Beethoven's 5th Symphony into a lengthy and quite repetitive musical glorification of the clothes peg and its fictitious inventor, Jérémie-Victor Opdebec. Blanche died at the age of 52, from a heart attack with a background of untreated Type 1 diabetes. He is buried in Èze cemetery. Source: Article "Francis Blanche" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Movie | Cast | Year |
---|---|---|
Male Hunt | Nino Papatakis | 1964 |
The Seventh Juror | Attorney General | 1962 |
Le Olimpiadi dei mariti | 1960 | |
The Eroticist | padre Scirer | 1972 |
The Great Spy Chase | Boris Vassiliev | 1964 |
Crooks in Clover | Maître Folace | 1963 |
Thank Heaven for Small Favors | Chief Insp. Cucherat | 1963 |
Sweet and Sour | Franz | 1963 |
People in Luck | M. Bricheton (« Le Repas gastronomique ») | 1963 |
The Big Wash | Doctor Loupioc | 1968 |
Erotissimo | Le polyvalent | 1969 |
The Virgins | M. de Brétevielle | 1963 |
The Green Mare | Ferdinand Haudouin | 1959 |
The Great Java | Auguste Kougloff / Augustin Colombani | 1971 |
Rita the Field Marshal | Captain Hans Vogel | 1967 |
Peek-a-boo | Garibaldo Trouchet, le ténor / Un musicien | 1954 |
Honoré de Marseille | Pasquale Marchetti | 1956 |
The Men in the Family | Strumberger | 1967 |
The Big Grasshopper | Gédéon | 1967 |
Some Like It... Cold | William, Foster Valmorin, l'américain | 1960 |
The Stud | Tax collector Dupuis | 1970 |
Ils ont vingt ans | Michel Barbarin | 1950 |
Champagne for Savages | Francis | 1964 |
Du mou dans la gâchette | La Prudence | 1967 |
Hitch-Hike | le douanier belge | 1962 |
Good Enough to Eat | Gilles | 1951 |
The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers | Mr. Humlaupt (segment "L'Homme qui vendit la tour Eiffel") | 1964 |
Dandelions by the Roots | Absalon | 1964 |
The Big Scare | 1964 | |
Les pieds nickelés | Commissaire Lenoir | 1964 |
Love and the Frenchwoman | Me Marcerou, avocat et ami du couple (segment "Le Divorce") | 1960 |
Snobs! | Morloch | 1962 |
Les gros malins | Francis Bertolde aka 'Le book' | 1969 |
Les 100 vies de Francis Blanche | Self (archive footage) | 2022 |
La Grande Maffia | Modeste Miette | 1971 |
Les Compagnons de la marguerite | L'inspecteur Maurice Leloup | 1967 |
Trust Me! | Nicolas | 1954 |
Tartarin de Tarascon | Antoine Tartarin | 1962 |
Who Stole the Body? | Édouard | 1963 |
Les gros bras | Mr. Pédro Andromèze | 1963 |
I've Had It | Mr. de Chatiez | 1973 |
The Vendetta | Bartoli | 1962 |
Les Gorilles | Félix | 1964 |
The Hideout | Edouard | 1962 |
Le canard en fer blanc | Le docteur Grego | 1967 |
Life is beautiful | un voisin | 1956 |
Are You Engaged to a Greek Sailor or an Airline Pilot? | Maurice Gombaud | 1971 |
The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot | Wanderer | 1973 |
No Pockets in a Shroud | Nathaël Grissom | 1974 |
A Whale That Had a Toothache | Francis | 1975 |
The Bear | Chappuis | 1960 |
The Abominable Man of Customs | Arnakos | 1963 |
Il furto è l'anima del commercio!?... | Sigfrid | 1971 |
La Dernière Bourrée à Paris | Gaston Payrac | 1973 |
Les malabars sont au parfum | Ivanov | 1966 |
I. You. They. | Darbon, le galeriste | 1973 |
Racconti romani di una ex-novizia | Pietro l'Aretino | 1973 |
Too Late to Love | Camille, le patron du bistrot | 1959 |
Poussez pas grand-père dans les cactus | Alphonse Ramier / Al Gregor | 1969 |
The Indestructible | 1959 | |
La Polka des menottes | un voisin | 1957 |
Say it with Flowers | 1974 | |
The Little Professor | General overseer | 1958 |
Requiem pour un caïd | Emile | 1964 |
Match contre la mort | 1959 | |
The Motorcycle Cops | His Excellency Curacagua | 1959 |
A Dog, A Mouse and a Sputnik | 1958 | |
Long Live the Duke! | 1960 | |
Pas de caviar pour tante Olga | 1965 | |
Accroche-toi, y'a du vent! | 1962 | |
The Real Bargain | 1965 | |
Long Live Henry IV... Long Live Love! | Prior | 1961 |
The Oldest Profession | The Doctor (segment "Aujourd'hui") | 1967 |
Alice au pays des merveilles | King of hearts | 1970 |
Salut Berthe ! | Passerby with the pipe (uncredited) | 1968 |
Aux frais de la princesse | 1969 | |
Scandal Man | 1972 | |
Faites donc plaisir aux amis | Maximiliano | 1969 |
Adieu Berthe | Léo Bertold | 1970 |
Little Girls and High Finance | 1960 | |
Belle de Jour | Monsieur Adolphe | 1967 |
House of Sin | Blanchin | 1961 |
Ces messieurs de la gâchette | Marco Lombardi | 1970 |
Midnight... Quai de Bercy | M. Boulay, l'épicier libidineux | 1953 |
The Great Gadget | Copec | 1967 |
Operation Gold Ingot | Fellous | 1962 |
Par le sang des autres | Le médecin | 1974 |
Le Solitaire | Norbert | 1973 |
Babette Goes to War | Schulz | 1959 |
The Sleeping Sentinel | Constant | 1966 |
Qu'est-ce qui fait courir les crocodiles ? | Hector Grogenol | 1971 |
The Sad Sack | Jean du Bois d'Ombelles | 1950 |
The Girl of a Thousand Months | Commendator Borgioli | 1961 |
Romulus and the Sabines | Mezio | 1961 |
Le bourgeois gentil mec | Spinosa | 1969 |
We Like It Cold | von Krussendorf | 1960 |
Jaloux comme un tigre | le chauffeur | 1964 |
Under Your Hat | Mario l'enchanteur | 1965 |
Les baratineurs | Louis Dujardin | 1965 |
Easy Come Easy Go | Félix | 1960 |
Les Livreurs | Félix | 1961 |
Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille | Loïc de Kerfuntel | 1969 |
OK Patron | Victor Hutin, le père de Sophie | 1974 |
Anyone Can Kill Me | La Bonbonne | 1957 |
Clémentine chérie | l'importun à la cérémonie des Miss (non crédité) | 1964 |
Toto in Paris | Il maggiordomo (uncredited) | 1958 |
Le pillole di Ercole | Augusto | 1960 |
Les jambes en l'air | Hugon | 1971 |
Les enquiquineurs | Monsieur Achille Eloy | 1966 |
The Killer is Listening | Self | 1948 |
Actualités télérévisées | Presenter | 1964 |
Frédérica | Ami de Gilbert | 1942 |
The Terror with Cross-Eyes | Commissioner Pigna | 1972 |
Comiques de toujours (Vol. 1 à 4) | Self (archive footage) | 2009 |
The Black Tulip | Plantin | 1964 |
Deux Romains en Gaule | Le druide inventeur de la potion d'invisibilité | 1967 |
Chance at Love | Adjutant (segment "Chance du guerrier, La") | 1964 |
Pierre Dac et Francis Blanche : Le Meilleur du Parti d'en Rire | Lui-même | 2020 | Series | Cast | Year |
À bout portant | Self | 1968 |
Samedi soir | Self | 1971 |
Midi trente | Self | 1972 |
Le bonheur conjugal | Le patron du restaurant | 1965 |
Cinépanorama | Self | 1956 |
Discorama | Self | 1959 |