Jean-Louis Trintignant

Born in 1930 in Piolenc, France, Trintignant at first studied law but was a drama student in Paris by the time he was twenty. After stage roles, mainly in classic works, he began to make films, attaining stardom in his third, playing Brigitte Bardot's husband in And God Created Woman—and then he went off to fulfill his military service, partly in Algeria. Back after several years, he immediately reestablished himself with an acclaimed—if brief, only 15 performances-stage appearance as Hamlet, then murdered Gérard Phillipe in Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Two important films in Italy followed: Violent Summer for Valerio Zurlini and the smash hit Il Sorpasso, with Vittorio Gassman. He first appeared for Costa-Gavras in Sleeping Car Murders, then was the obvious choice as the race car driver hero in Lelouch's A Man and A Woman (two of his uncles were professional racers) a monstrous world-wide smash. Every other film he made during this time seems to have won an award or was a critical and/or commercial international hit: Chabrol's Les Biches, in the middle of a lesbian affair; L'homme qui ment for Alain RobbeGrillet, author of Last Year at Marienbad (Best Actor, Berlin); Z (Best Actor, Cannes); Eric Rohmer's My Night at Maude's; Bertolucci's The Conformist; the Marseilles thriller Without Apparent Motive—even the cult Spaghetti Western The Great Silence, a wordless part, set amid mountain snowdrifts, and with the world's most downbeat ending.

If Trintignant never established the powerful, international star profiles of his rough contemporaries Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon - perhaps because of his lighter, more relaxed, effortlessly charming style – he probably starred in more international hits than the two combined. Among the films he refused were Losey's The Servant in the James Fox part – he didn't speak English; and Last Tango in Paris – he didn't like all the nude scenes. In the 80s he appeared in his first English-language film, Under Fire, with Gene Hackman; the last films of two great directors: Truffaut's Confidentially Yours and Kieslowski's Red. Subsequently less active, partly from injuries suffered in a car accident, he played, almost unrecognizably, in Chereau's Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (1998).

Rialto Pictures