Francis Blanche
119 movies · 1 TV show
- Known for
- Acting
- Born
- Jul 20, 1921
- Died
- Jul 6, 1974 (age 52)
- Place of birth
- Paris, France
- Also known as
- Francis-Jean Blanche · Francis Jean Blanche
Biography
François Jean Blanche, known as "Francis Blanche" (20 July 1921 – 6 July 1974) was a French actor, singer, humorist and author. He was a very popular figure on stage, radio and in films, during the 1950s and 1960s. His two daughters, Barbara & Dominique, are artists with their studios in Eze.
Blanche was born in an artistic family, mainly of stage actors—including his father Louis Blanche and his uncle, Emmanuel Blanche, who was a painter—. He completed his secondary schooling at fourteen, the youngest in France to do so at the time.
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In the 1940s and 1950s, Blanche was part of Robert Dhéry's theatrical company Les Branquignols, with whom he played in the film Ah! Les belles bacchantes, starring Robert Dhéry, Colette Brosset (Dhéry's then-wife), and Louis de Funès; directed by Jean Loubignac in 1954.
Blanche teamed up with Pierre Dac to form a comic duo best remembered for Le Sâr Rabindranath Duval, a sketch about a phony and nonsensical Indian clairvoyant and guru (1957). They also created a popular and equally nonsensical radiophonic series, loosely based on a highly improbable espionage and conspiration plot, Malheur aux barbus, which was broadcast on Paris Inter in 213 episodes from 1951 to 1952. The same plot and characters were revived on Europe 1 in a series called Signé Furax, enjoying no less than 1,034 daily episodes between 1956 and 1960. Both broadcasts were phenomenal audience successes in the pre-television era. Blanche was also renowned for broadcasting phone pranks, in which he entertained listeners by making the most improbable situations sound plausible.
He wrote poems, and the lyrics of 673 songs. On stage, he acted in Tartuffe and Néron and, in 1955, Chevalier du Ciel, an operetta by Luis Mariano at the Gaîté-Lyrique theatre.
Blanche also enjoyed a successful cinematographic career, both as an actor and scriptwriter. He appeared as a hard-headed German colonel ("Obersturmführer Schulz") opposite Brigitte Bardot in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre (1959). He was one of the favourite actors of French filmmaker Georges Lautner, and played Maître Folace (a shady solicitor counselling a colourful gangster mob) in Les Tontons flingueurs (1963). Blanche also appeared in Boris Vassilief's Les Barbouzes (1964).
He delighted in parodying classical music, adapting famous works such as Schubert's "Die Forelle" (The Trout) into a crazy and slightly risqué piece about a 16-year-old romantic girl obsessed with Schubert's song to the point of giving birth to a live trout while performing it on her piano. Similarly, he turned Beethoven's 5th Symphony into a lengthy and quite repetitive musical glorification of the clothes peg and its fictitious inventor, Jérémie-Victor Opdebec.
Blanche died at the age of 52, from a heart attack with a background of untreated Type 1 diabetes. He is buried in Èze cemetery.
Source: Article "Francis Blanche" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Profiles IMDb
Known for
Francis Blanche: movies and TV shows
Acting (118)
- 2020
- 1975 A Whale That Had a Toothache
as Francis
- 1974 No Pockets in a Shroud
as Nathaël Grissom
- 1974 Say it with Flowers
as Gérard Rollain
- 1974 France, Incorporated
as Pierre, the perverted financier
- 1974 OK Patron
as Victor Hutin, Sophie's father
- 1974 By the Blood of Others
as Doctor
- 1973 La Dernière Bourrée à Paris
as Gaston Payrac
- 1973 The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot
as Wanderer
- 1973 Le Solitaire
as Norbert
- 1973 Racconti romani di una ex-novizia
as Pietro l'Aretino
- 1973 I. You. They.
as Darbon, le galeriste
- 1973 I've Had It
as Mr. de Chatiez
- 1972 The Terror with Cross-Eyes
as Commissioner Pigna
- 1972 The Eroticist
as padre Scirer
- 1972 Scandal Man
as Paluche
- 1971 La Grande Maffia
as Modeste Miette
- 1971 Il furto è l'anima del commercio!?...
as Sigfrid
- 1971 Qu'est-ce qui fait courir les crocodiles ?
as Hector Grogenol
- 1971 Les Jambes en l'air
as Hugon
- 1971 Are You Engaged to a Greek Sailor or an Airline Pilot?
as Maurice Gombaud
- 1971 The Great Java
as Auguste Kougloff / Augustin Colombani
- 1970 Alice au pays des merveilles
as King of hearts
- 1970 Ces messieurs de la gâchette
as Marco Lombardi
- 1970 Adieu Berthe
as Léo Bertold
- 1970 The Stud
as Tax collector Dupuis
- 1969 Poussez pas grand-père dans les cactus
as Alphonse Ramier / Al Gregor
- 1969 Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille
as Loïc de Kerfuntel
- 1969 Aux frais de la princesse
as Achille
- 1969 Erotissimo
as Le polyvalent
- 1969 Le bourgeois gentil mec
as Spinosa
- 1969 Les gros malins
as Francis Bertolde aka 'Le book'
- 1969 Faites donc plaisir aux amis
as Maximiliano
- 1968 The Big Wash
as Doctor Loupioc
- 1968 Salut Berthe !
as Passerby with the pipe (uncredited)
- 1968 The Men in the Family
as Strumberger
- 1967 Rita the Field Marshal
as Captain Hans Vogel
- 1967 Loose in the Trigger
as La Prudence
- 1967 The Great Gadget
as Copec
- 1967 Belle de Jour
as Mr. Adolphe
- 1967 Le canard en fer blanc
as Le docteur Grego
- 1967 The Oldest Profession
as The Doctor (segment "Aujourd'hui")
- 1967 Deux Romains en Gaule
as Le druide inventeur de la potion d'invisibilité
- 1967 Order of the Daisy
as L'inspecteur Maurice Leloup
- 1967 The Big Grasshopper
as Gédéon
- 1966 Les enquiquineurs
as Monsieur Achille Eloy
- 1966 Les malabars sont au parfum
as Ivanov
- 1966 The Sleeping Sentinel
as Constant
- 1965 Under Your Hat
as Mario l'enchanteur
- 1965 Pas de caviar pour tante Olga
as Dufour
- 1965
- 1965 The Real Bargain
as Paul Souflé
- 1965 Les baratineurs
as Louis Dujardin
- 1964 Les Gorilles
as Félix
- 1964 The Great Spy Chase
as Boris Vassiliev
- 1964 Chance at Love
as Adjutant (segment "Chance du guerrier, La")
- 1964
- 1964 Les Pieds nickelés
as Commissaire Lenoir
- 1964 Male Hunt
as Nino Papatakis
- 1964 Champagne for Savages
as Francis
- 1964 The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers
as Mr. Humlaupt (segment "L'Homme qui vendit la tour Eiffel")
- 1964 Clémentine chérie
as Nuisance at the Miss ceremony (uncredited)
- 1964 Requiem pour un caïd
as Émile aka 'le Boxeur'
- 1964 Jaloux comme un tigre
as Chauffeur
- 1964 Dandelions by the Roots
as Absalon
- 1964 Actualités télérévisées
as Presenter
- 1964 The Black Tulip
as Plantin
- 1964 L'échelle
as Breton
- 1963 Les Gros Bras
as Mr. Pédro Andromèze
- 1963 Crooks in Clover
as Maître Folace
- 1963 Sweet and Sour
as Franz
- 1963 Light-Fingered George
as Chief Insp. Cucherat
- 1963 The Virgins
as Mr. De Brétevielle
- 1963 People in Luck
as M. Bricheton (segment "Le Repas gastronomique")
- 1963 The Abominable Man of Customs
as Arnakos
- 1963 Who Stole the Body?
as Édouard
- 1962 Tartarin de Tarascon
as Antoine Tartarin
- 1962 The Hideout
as Edouard
- 1962 Snobs!
as Morloch
- 1962 Accroche-toi, y'a du vent!
as Capitano Fornace
- 1962 The Seventh Juror
as Le procureur général
- 1962 The Vendetta
as Bartoli
- 1962 Hitch-Hike
as le douanier belge
- 1962 Operation Gold Ingot
as Fellous
- 1961 Romulus and the Sabines
as Mezio
- 1961 The Girl of a Thousand Months
as Commendator Borgioli
- 1961 House of Sin
as Blanchin
- 1961 Les Livreurs
as Félix
- 1961
- 1960 The Bear
as Chappuis
- 1960 Little Girls and High Finance
as Bank manager
- 1960
- 1960 We Like It Cold
as von Krussendorf
- 1960 Love and the Frenchwoman
as Me Marcerou, avocat et ami du couple (segment "Le Divorce")
- 1960 Le pillole di Ercole
as Augusto
- 1960 Easy Come Easy Go
as Félix
- 1960
- 1960 Some Like It... Cold
as William Foster Valmorin, American
- 1959 Match contre la mort
as Mr. Pascal
- 1959 The Green Mare
as Ferdinand Haudouin
- 1959 Babette Goes to War
as Schulz
- 1959 Too Late to Love
as Camille, le patron du bistrot
- 1959 The Indestructible
as Francis Blanchard
- 1959 The Motorcycle Cops
as His Excellency Curacagua
- 1958 Toto in Paris
as Il maggiordomo (uncredited)
- 1958 The Little Professor
as General overseer
- 1958 A Dog, A Mouse and a Sputnik
as Chazot
- 1957 Anyone Can Kill Me
as La Bonbonne
- 1957 La Polka des menottes
as un voisin
- 1956 Honoré de Marseille
as Pasquale Marchetti
- 1956 Life is beautiful
as un voisin
- 1954 Peek-a-boo
as Garibaldo Trouchet, le ténor / Un musicien
- 1954 Trust Me!
as Nicolas
- 1953 Midnight... Quai de Bercy
as M. Boulay, l'épicier libidineux
- 1951 Good Enough to Eat
as Gilles
- 1950 Ils ont vingt ans
as Michel Barbarin
- 1950 The Sad Sack
as Jean du Bois d'Ombelles
- 1942 Frédérica
as Ami de Gilbert
Behind the camera (5)
- 1981 Signé Furax
Writer
- 1973 La Grande Bouffe
Screenplay
- 1962 Tartarin de Tarascon
Director
- 1954 Peek-a-boo
Lyricist
- 1954 Trust Me!
Writer
Talk shows and appearances (8)
- 2022
- 2009
- 1972 Midi trente
2 episodes
- 1971 Samedi soir
4 episodes
- 1968 À bout portant
1 episode
- 1959 Discorama
1 episode
- 1956 Cinépanorama
2 episodes
- 1948