Jacques Perrin (1941-2022) *80

was a French actor and filmmaker. He was occasionally credited as Jacques Simonet. 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.