Gérard Philipe

Biography: life and films

Gérard Philipe was an actor blessed with a rare combination of talent, good looks and humanity which earned him the respect and admiration of French people of all classes and generations. Despite the brevity of his acting career, he occupies an important place in French culture, still regarded with great affection by many, and his egalitarian principles and passion for drama live on in the institutions (schools, colleges and theatres) which bear his name.

He was born Gérard Philip in Cannes, into a comfortable bourgeois family, on 4 December 1922. His father, Marcel, a successful businessman, was involved with extreme right-wing politics and collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War. To escape a death sentence after the war, Marcel Philip was forced to flee into exile in Spain. His son's politics would head in the opposite direction, as the young actor embraced the socialist ideal.

After a promising school education, Gérard decided to become an actor and, encouraged by Marc Allégret, he studied drama in Nice. He made his debut at Cannes in André Roussin's play Une grande fille toute simple in July 1942. At this time, he added an 'e' to his surname, taking his full name up to 13 letters, something which superstitious folk are quick to link to the actor's tragic future.

Gérard Philipe made his film debut in 1943 with Yves Allégret's La boîte aux rêves and Marc Allégret's Les petites du quai aux fleurs. With the support of his admirer Jean Cocteau, he entered the Paris Conservatory where, under the tutelage de Georges Le Roy he discovered his passion for live theatre.

In Paris, Gérard Philipe won critical acclaim for his role in a Paris production of Albert Camus' play Caligula, for which he was likened to the celebrated established actor Louis Barrault. He returned to cinema in 1946 with Georges Lampin's L'Idiot (1946) and Claude Autant-Lara's controversial film Le Diable au corps (1947). Philipe, aged just 24, became almost overnight an emblem of post-war romantic heroism, the first in a new generation of French matinée idols.

Other lead roles followed, in films such as La Chartreuse de Parme (1948), Une si jolie petite plage (1949) and La Beauté du diable (1950). He simultaneously pursued his stage career, with a keen involvement in the Théatre National de Paris, which would endure up until his death. (Whilst working at the TNP, Philipe, a strong believer in egalitarianism, would draw exactly the same salary as junior actors.) He would also become president of the French actors union, actively promoting the rights of actors.

By the early 1950s, Philipe had become one of the most popular actors of his generation, adulated for his captivating performances in films such as Fanfan la Tulipe (1952), Le Rouge et le noir (1954) and Les Orgueilleux (1953). Shortly after completing work on Roger Vadim's film Les Liaisons dangereuses in 1958, Philipe was diagnosed as having cancer of the liver. Although his health was declining, he worked on one final film, Luis Buñuel's La Fièvre monte à El Pao (1959). Soon after, on 25 November 1959, Gérard Philipe died from his cancer illness in Paris, at the age of 36, provoking an immediate and intense out-pouring of grief in France. He now lies beneath a simple grave in a small cemetery at Ramatuelle, in his beloved Provence.

Filmography

Click here to view complete list of films...