With a melancholic appearance but endowed with great magnetism, the French actor Jean-Lous Trintignant died this Friday at the age of 91, after a long career of six decades and films such as “And God created woman” o “Z“.
His entry into the history of cinema was famous, with “A Man and a Woman” of Claude LelouchPalme d’Or at Cannes in 1966.
Just three years later he won the award for best male performance with “Z” by Costa Gavras, an indictment against the Greek colonels’ dictatorship that would quickly resonate in Latin America.
A perfectionist and modest, suffering from cancer for several years, Trintignant experienced a painful personal drama in 2003, when his daughter Marie was beaten to death by the French rock singer Bertrand Cantat.
That day “everything inside me was destroyed,” he confessed years later.
Trintignant always harbored suicidal ideas, despite a passion for acting that quickly led him to success, and which he knew how to manage prudently, unlike other contemporaries of the same generation rising in the 1960s.
Austere education, passion for theater
Jean-Louis Trintignant was born on December 11, 1930 in Piolenc, in southeastern France, the son of an industrialist and the nephew of a well-known racing driver of the time, Maurice Trintignant.
Rigorous educated, his shyness did not prevent him from opting for the theater.
In 1951 he made his debut in Paris with the play “María Estuardo” by Schiller and five years later on the big screen with “Si tous les gars du monde”, by Christian-Jaque (in Spain translated as “TKX does not reply”).
That same year rolls “And God created woman” con Brigitte Bardot, directed by her husband, Roger Vadim. Trintignant went on to claim that she chose him simply because he was “handsome”. Her affairs with Bardot cause a sensation.
After a traumatic military service in Algeria, in the midst of the war of independence, the actor casts again with “Dangerous Liaisons”, again under the baton of Vadim (1960).
These are years of cinematographic frenzy, following in the footsteps of the two great stars of the moment, John Paul Belmondo y Alain Delon.
Rueda “A Man and a Woman” con Anouk Aimee. “Is Paris burning?” with Belmondo himself (1968), “The man who lies” in 1968, for which he received the Silver Bear for best actor in Berlin.
Trintignant has a predilection for ambiguous, impenetrable, disturbing characters. Over the years, her mask becomes a formidable interpretive resource, like her voice, deep and very recognizable to the viewer.
back to the theater
In Italy he filmed “El fanfarrón” by Dino Risi (1962) and then “El conformista” by Bernardo Bertolucci (1970).
In 1973 he dares to get behind the camera: “A day well spent”. He repeats with “Le maître-nageur” (1979) without great success.
In the 1980s, this anti-conformist turned his gaze to the theater. But directors also keep knocking on his door: Jacques Audiard’s “Watch Men Fall” or Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Three Colors: Red,” both from 1994, are huge critical successes.
After the death of his daughter Marie, he left the cinema for almost ten years. He returns with “Amor” (2012), a shocking portrait of an octogenarian facing the slow agony of his wife.
At the orders of the Austrian Michael Haneke won a César for best actor for “Happy End“, in 2017.
He lavishes himself with public poetry readings in Parisian theaters (his “therapy” and his “true trade,” he explains).
“One makes films a little out of vanity, to stop being shy,” he once confessed to AFP.
In 2019 he closes a circle with the director Claude Lelouchwhen shooting “The most beautiful years of a life”, which represents the second part of “A Man and a Woman“. Like 53 years ago, together with Anouk Aimée.
He married first the actress Stéphane Audran and then the director Nadine Marquand with whom he had three children: Marie, Pauline (who died as a baby) and Vincent.
After divorcing Marquand, he married a third marriage with a racing driver, Marianne Hoepfner.
He died at his home in Uzès, in the south of France, “serenely, of old age, surrounded by his loved ones,” his wife said in a statement.
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