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Francis Blanche

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. 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.

  • Known ForActing
  • Born20 July 1921 (age 104)
  • Place of BirthParis, France

Francis Blanche

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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. 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.

  • Known ForActing
  • Born20 July 1921 (age 104)
  • Place of BirthParis, France
KNOWN FOR
PHOTOS
CREDITS
Poster
Les 100 vies de Francis Blanche
star
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2022
Poster
Pierre Dac et Francis Blanche : Le Meilleur du Parti d'en Rire
star
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2020
Poster
Comiques de toujours (Vol. 1 à 4)
star
-
2009
Poster
A Whale That Had a Toothache
star
5.0
1975
Poster
No Pockets in a Shroud
star
5.4
1974
Poster
Say it with Flowers
star
4.0
1974
Poster
Par le sang des autres
star
5.0
1974
Poster
OK Patron
star
5.0
1974
Poster
France, Incorporated
star
4.1
1974
Poster
I've Had It
star
5.0
1973
Poster
The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot
star
5.067
1973
Poster
La Dernière Bourrée à Paris
star
1.0
1973
Poster
I. You. They.
star
4.0
1973
Poster
Racconti romani di una ex-novizia
star
2.0
1973
Poster
Le Solitaire
star
5.3
1973
Poster
The Eroticist
star
5.7
1972
Poster
Scandal Man
star
4.0
1972
Poster
The Terror with Cross-Eyes
star
-
1972
Poster
The Great Java
star
5.9
1971
Poster
La Grande Maffia
star
3.0
1971
Poster
Are You Engaged to a Greek Sailor or an Airline Pilot?
star
3.7
1971
Poster
Il furto è l'anima del commercio!?...
star
4.0
1971
Poster
Qu'est-ce qui fait courir les crocodiles ?
star
4.0
1971
Poster
Les Jambes en l'air
star
4.0
1971
Poster
The Stud
star
4.9
1970
Poster
Alice au pays des merveilles
star
5.7
1970
Poster
Adieu Berthe
star
-
1970
Poster
Ces messieurs de la gâchette
star
3.3
1970
Poster
Erotissimo
star
5.853
1969
Poster
Les gros malins
star
1.0
1969
Poster
Poussez pas grand-père dans les cactus
star
3.5
1969
Poster
Aux frais de la princesse
star
1.0
1969
Poster
Faites donc plaisir aux amis
star
4.5
1969
Poster
Le bourgeois gentil mec
star
1.0
1969
Poster
Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille
star
3.0
1969
Poster
The Big Wash
star
5.988
1968
Poster
Salut Berthe !
star
4.4
1968
Poster
Rita the Field Marshal
star
5.2
1967
Poster
The Men in the Family
star
5.2
1967
Poster
The Big Grasshopper
star
6.2
1967
Poster
Du mou dans la gâchette
star
5.6
1967
Poster
Order of the Daisy
star
6.3
1967
Poster
Le canard en fer blanc
star
3.8
1967
Poster
The Oldest Profession
star
5.0
1967
Poster
Belle de Jour
star
7.332
1967
Poster
The Great Gadget
star
3.2
1967
Poster
Deux Romains en Gaule
star
6.5
1967
Poster
Les malabars sont au parfum
star
3.3
1966
Poster
The Sleeping Sentinel
star
4.7
1966
Poster
Les enquiquineurs
star
3.0
1966
Poster
Pas de caviar pour tante Olga
star
-
1965
Poster
The Real Bargain
star
1.0
1965
Poster
Under Your Hat
star
3.6
1965
Poster
Les baratineurs
star
4.0
1965
Poster
Male Hunt
star
6.554
1964
Poster
The Great Spy Chase
star
6.836
1964
Poster
Champagne for Savages
star
6.0
1964
Poster
The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers
star
5.3
1964
Poster
Dandelions by the Roots
star
5.6
1964
Poster
The Big Scare
star
5.9
1964
Poster
Les pieds nickelés
star
5.8
1964
Poster
Les Gorilles
star
5.5
1964
Poster
Requiem pour un caïd
star
5.8
1964
Poster
Jaloux comme un tigre
star
2.0
1964
Poster
Clémentine chérie
star
6.0
1964
Poster
Actualités télérévisées
star
-
1964
Poster
The Black Tulip
star
6.298
1964
Poster
Chance at Love
star
5.8
1964
Poster
Crooks in Clover
star
7.747
1963
Poster
Thank Heaven for Small Favors
star
6.555
1963
Poster
Sweet and Sour
star
4.6
1963
Poster
People in Luck
star
5.7
1963
Poster
The Virgins
star
4.6
1963
Poster
Who Stole the Body?
star
6.5
1963
Poster
Les gros bras
star
3.8
1963
Poster
The Abominable Man of Customs
star
5.0
1963
Poster
Tartarin de Tarascon
star
4.8
1962
Poster
The Seventh Juror
star
6.858
1962
Poster
Hitch-Hike
star
5.5
1962
Poster
Snobs!
star
5.7
1962
Poster
The Vendetta
star
5.4
1962
Poster
The Hideout
star
-
1962
Poster
Accroche-toi, y'a du vent!
star
-
1962
Poster
Operation Gold Ingot
star
-
1962
Poster
Long Live Henry IV... Long Live Love!
star
5.2
1961
Poster
House of Sin
star
4.0
1961
Poster
The Girl of a Thousand Months
star
2.0
1961
Poster
Romulus and the Sabines
star
5.0
1961
Poster
Les Livreurs
star
-
1961
Poster
Le Olimpiadi dei mariti
star
7.3
1960
Poster
Some Like It... Cold
star
5.5
1960
Poster
Love and the Frenchwoman
star
4.9
1960
Poster
The Bear
star
6.0
1960
Poster
Long Live the Duke!
star
-
1960
Poster
Little Girls and High Finance
star
6.5
1960
Poster
We Like It Cold
star
6.5
1960
Poster
Easy Come Easy Go
star
4.0
1960
Poster
Le pillole di Ercole
star
-
1960
Poster
The Green Mare
star
5.6
1959
Poster
Too Late to Love
star
5.6
1959
Poster
The Indestructible
star
5.0
1959
Poster
Match contre la mort
star
-
1959
Poster
The Motorcycle Cops
star
5.0
1959
Poster
Babette Goes to War
star
5.531
1959
Poster
The Little Professor
star
3.1
1958
Poster
A Dog, A Mouse and a Sputnik
star
4.0
1958
Poster
Toto in Paris
star
6.2
1958
Poster
La Polka des menottes
star
6.8
1957
Poster
Anyone Can Kill Me
star
5.9
1957
Poster
Honoré de Marseille
star
5.7
1956
Poster
Life is beautiful
star
4.5
1956
Poster
Peek-a-boo
star
5.0
1954
Poster
Trust Me!
star
5.4
1954
Poster
Midnight... Quai de Bercy
star
6.5
1953
Poster
Good Enough to Eat
star
6.75
1951
Poster
Ils ont vingt ans
star
-
1950
Poster
The Sad Sack
star
-
1950
Poster
The Killer is Listening
star
1.0
1948
Poster
Frédérica
star
4.0
1942