Jacques Perrin

Jacques Perrin (born Jacques André Simonet; 13 July 1941 – 21 April 2022) was a French actor and filmmaker. 

He was occasionally credited as Jacques Simonet.

Career

He gave over 400 performances of L'Année du bac, by José-André Lacour, on the Parisian stage (starting in 1958).

He was given his first juvenile film roles by Italian director Valerio Zurlini, becoming then one of his favorite actors.

He appeared alongside Claudia Cardinale in the romantic comedy La Ragazza con la valigia and Marcello Mastroianni in Family Diary. He then played several roles in films of Henri-Georges Clouzot (The Truth in 1960) or Mauro Bolognini (Corruption in 1963) and leading roles in four films by Pierre Schoendoerffer : La 317e Section (1965), Le Crabe-tambour (1977), A Captain's Honor (1982) and Là-haut, un roi au dessus des nuages (2004). He played in two musical movies by Jacques Demy : The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and Donkey Skin (1970), both with Catherine Deneuve. He also was the adult Salvatore in the international success Cinema Paradiso.

In 1966, he won two Best Actor awards at the Venice Film Festival, for the Italian film Almost a Man and the Spanish film The Search.

At 27, he created a film production company and produced and acted in Z, directed by Costa-Gavras and starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, and Irene Papas. Z received the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1969.

He produced Costa-Gavras's films État de Siège (State of Siege) in 1973 and Section spéciale in 1975. Both had political themes, and as a producer, Perrin continued along this path with a documentary on the Algerian uprising (La guerre d'Algérie) and a film on the Chilean presidency of Salvador Allende (La Spirale). In 1973, Perrin produced the first film by Benoît Lamy, Home Sweet Home in which he starred alongside Claude Jade as his love interest. The movie received 14 international awards.

In 1976, he produced another Oscar-winning film : La Victoire en chantant (Black and White in Color) by director Jean-Jacques Annaud. A year later, he embarked on Le Désert des Tartares as a producer and an actor, co-starring Trintignant again, but also Max von Sydow, Vittorio Gassman and Philippe Noiret. The film won the Grand Prix du Cinéma Français.

Perrin then devoted himself to nature documentary. He was the producer of Microcosmos in 1995 and producer and co-director of Le Peuple Migrateur (Winged Migration) in 2001, Océans in 2009 and Seasons in 2015.

He played the role of the old Pierre Morhange, narrator of the internationally successful film The Chorus, that he also produced. The young Pépinot was played by his son Maxence.

Jacques Perrin has received numerous distinctions including that of the Commander of the Legion of Honour and Commander of the National Order of the Merit.

In 2015, he became a member of the French Marine Painters and was promoted to Commander as a reserve officer in the French Navy.

In 2016, he received the prestigious Prix du Cinéma René Clair from the French Academy.

Personal life

Perrin was born in Paris. His father, Alexandre Simonet, was a theatre director and his mother, Marie Perrin, was an actress. He is also the nephew of the actor Antoine Balpêtré. Perrin was trained as an actor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique.

He married Valentine Perrin in 1995. He had three sons, Mathieu (born 1975), Maxence (born 1995) and Lancelot, born 2000. The two eldest are actors.

Perrin died on 21 April 2022, in Paris, aged 80.

Filmography

Actor

• Les Portes de la nuit (1946)
• La Peau de l'ours (1957)
• La Ragazza con la valigia (Girl with a Suitcase) (1960)
• The Truth (La Vérité) (1960)
• Sun in Your Eyes (1962)
• Family Diary (1962)
• And Satan Calls the Turns (1962)
• Il Fornaretto di Venezia (1963)
• The Sleeping Car Murders (1965)
• The 317th Platoon (1965)
• La Ligne de démarcation (1966)
• Almost a Man (1966)
• The Search (1966)
• Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967)
• Shock Troops (1967)
• L'Horizon [fr] (1967)
• A Little Virtuous (1968)
• Z (1969)
• Peau d'Âne (Donkey Skin) (1970)
• Blanche (1971)
• Goya, a Story of Solitude (1971)
• Home Sweet Home (1973)
• Il deserto dei tartari (1976)
• Le Crabe-tambour (Drummer-Crab) (1977)
• Raoni (1978 – narrator)
• La Légion saute sur Kolwezi (1980)
• L' Honneur d'un capitaine (1982)
• L'Année des méduses (Year of the Jellyfish) (1984)
• Race for the Bomb (1987)
• Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (Cinema Paradiso) (1989)
• Flight of the Innocent (1992)
• Nothing But Lies (1992)
• The Young Girls Turn 25 (1993)
• The Long Silence (1993)
• Swallows Never Die in Jerusalem (1994)
• Prima la musica, poi le parole (1998)
• Brotherhood of the Wolf (2002)
• Les Choristes (The Chorus) (2004)
• L'Enfer (Hell) (2005)
• Le Petit Lieutenant (2005)
• Louis XI: Shattered Power (2011)

Producer

• Z (1969) Academy Award for Best Foreign Film
• Blanche (1970)
• La guerre d'Algérie (1972)
• State of Siege (1972)
• La Spirale (1974)
• Section spéciale (1975)
• Black and White in Color (La Victoire en Chantant]) (1976) Academy Award for Best Foreign Film
• Le Désert des Tartares (1977)
• L'Adoption (1978)
• Les 40ième Rugissants (1981)
• Le Peuple singe (1988)
• Médecins des Hommes (1988)
• Hors la Vie (1990)
• Guelwaar (1992)
• Erythrée, 30 ans de solitude (1993)
• Espérance (1994)
• D'Duy (1994)
• Les enfants de Lumière (1995)
• Microcosmos (1996)
• Himalaya (1996) with Christophe Barratier, Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film
• Le Peuple Migrateur (Winged Migration) (2001)
• 11'09"01 September 11 (2002)
• Les choristes (2004)
• Océans (2010)
• Les Saisons (2016)
• The Mercy (2016)
• Team Spirit (2016)