CLAUDE RICH

21 Jul

(8 February 1929 - 20 July 2017)

The French actor and writer Claude Rich, who has died at the age of 88, was a very successful performer in his native country. Rarely seen in international movies, he acted in over a hundred French films and television productions. His first film was René Clair’s Summer Manoeuvres (1955) with Michèle Morgan and Gérard Philipe. He worked again with Clair on Tout l’or du monde and Love and the Frenchwoman, with Jean Renoir in The Vanishing Corporal, Claude Chabrol on The Seven Deadly Sins, Édouard Molinaro on The Gentle Art of Seduction (and several other titles), with René Clément on Is Paris Burning?, Truffaut on The Bride Wore Black, Resnais on Stavisky, Private Fears in Public Places and Je t’aime, je t’aime, among many other films. He won a César (the French Oscar) for playing Talleyrand in Le souper, and he was Panoramix in Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra. His last film was Ladygrey in 2015. Claude Rich and his wife Catherine Renaudin had two daughters, actress Delphine and painter Nathalie, and an adopted son, Remy.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

CLAUDE RICH

JOHN HEARD

GEORGE A. ROMERO