born Dec. 11, 1930, Piolenc, France
French film actor.
After leaving law school to study acting, he made his stage debut in 1951 and his film debut in 1956. He won favourable notice in And God Created Woman (1956) and gained international fame for his role as a race-car driver in A Man and a Woman (1966). Known for his reserved but intense screen persona, he conveyed the psychic conflicts of repressed characters in My Night at Maud's (1969), Z (1969), and, most strikingly, The Conformist (1970), among many other films. He worked sparingly in the 1980s and '90s because of poor health, but his role in Three Colours: Red won him acclaim.