Acting
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.
Filmography
Les 100 vies de Francis Blanche
Film · 2022
Pierre Dac et Francis Blanche : Le Meilleur du Parti d'en Rire
Film · 2020
Comiques de toujours (Vol. 1 à 4)
Film · 2009
A Whale That Had a Toothache
Film · 1975
No Pockets in a Shroud
Film · 1974
Say it with Flowers
Film · 1974
By the Blood of Others
Film · 1974
OK Patron
Film · 1974
France, Incorporated
Film · 1974
I've Had It
Film · 1973
The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot
Film · 1973
La Dernière Bourrée à Paris
Film · 1973
I. You. They.
Film · 1973
Racconti romani di una ex-novizia
Film · 1973
Le Solitaire
Film · 1973
The Eroticist
Film · 1972
Scandal Man
Film · 1972
The Terror with Cross-Eyes
Film · 1972
Midi trente
Series · 1972
The Great Java
Film · 1971
La Grande Maffia
Film · 1971
Are You Engaged to a Greek Sailor or an Airline Pilot?
Film · 1971
Il furto è l'anima del commercio!?...
Film · 1971
Qu'est-ce qui fait courir les crocodiles ?
Film · 1971
Les Jambes en l'air
Film · 1971
Samedi soir
Series · 1971
The Stud
Film · 1970
Alice au pays des merveilles
Film · 1970
Adieu Berthe
Film · 1970
Ces messieurs de la gâchette
Film · 1970
Erotissimo
Film · 1969
Les gros malins
Film · 1969
Poussez pas grand-père dans les cactus
Film · 1969
Aux frais de la princesse
Film · 1969
Faites donc plaisir aux amis
Film · 1969
Le bourgeois gentil mec
Film · 1969
Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille
Film · 1969
The Big Wash
Film · 1968
The Men in the Family
Film · 1968
Salut Berthe !
Film · 1968
À bout portant
Series · 1968
Rita the Field Marshal
Film · 1967
The Big Grasshopper
Film · 1967
Loose in the Trigger
Film · 1967
Order of the Daisy
Film · 1967
Le canard en fer blanc
Film · 1967
The Oldest Profession
Film · 1967
Belle de Jour
Film · 1967
The Great Gadget
Film · 1967
Deux Romains en Gaule
Film · 1967
Les malabars sont au parfum
Film · 1966
The Sleeping Sentinel
Film · 1966
Les enquiquineurs
Film · 1966
Pas de caviar pour tante Olga
Film · 1965
The Real Bargain
Film · 1965
Under Your Hat
Film · 1965
Les baratineurs
Film · 1965
Le Bonheur conjugal
Series · 1965
Male Hunt
Film · 1964
The Great Spy Chase
Film · 1964
Champagne for Savages
Film · 1964
The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers
Film · 1964
Dandelions by the Roots
Film · 1964
The Big Scare
Film · 1964
Les Pieds nickelés
Film · 1964
Les Gorilles
Film · 1964
Requiem pour un caïd
Film · 1964
Jaloux comme un tigre
Film · 1964
Clémentine chérie
Film · 1964
Actualités télérévisées
Film · 1964
The Black Tulip
Film · 1964
Chance at Love
Film · 1964
L'échelle
Film · 1964
Crooks in Clover
Film · 1963
Light-Fingered George
Film · 1963
Sweet and Sour
Film · 1963
People in Luck
Film · 1963
The Virgins
Film · 1963
Who Stole the Body?
Film · 1963
Les Gros Bras
Film · 1963
The Abominable Man of Customs
Film · 1963
The Seventh Juror
Film · 1962
Hitch-Hike
Film · 1962
Snobs!
Film · 1962
Tartarin de Tarascon
Film · 1962
The Vendetta
Film · 1962
The Hideout
Film · 1962
Accroche-toi, y'a du vent!
Film · 1962
Operation Gold Ingot
Film · 1962
Long Live Henry IV... Long Live Love!
Film · 1961
House of Sin
Film · 1961
The Girl of a Thousand Months
Film · 1961
Romulus and the Sabines
Film · 1961
Les Livreurs
Film · 1961
Le Olimpiadi dei mariti
Film · 1960
Some Like It... Cold
Film · 1960
Love and the Frenchwoman
Film · 1960
The Bear
Film · 1960
Long Live the Duke!
Film · 1960
Little Girls and High Finance
Film · 1960
We Like It Cold
Film · 1960
Easy Come Easy Go
Film · 1960
Le pillole di Ercole
Film · 1960
The Green Mare
Film · 1959
Too Late to Love
Film · 1959
The Indestructible
Film · 1959
Match contre la mort
Film · 1959
The Motorcycle Cops
Film · 1959
Babette Goes to War
Film · 1959
Discorama
Series · 1959
The Little Professor
Film · 1958
A Dog, A Mouse and a Sputnik
Film · 1958
Toto in Paris
Film · 1958
La Polka des menottes
Film · 1957
Anyone Can Kill Me
Film · 1957
Honoré de Marseille
Film · 1956
Life is beautiful
Film · 1956
Cinépanorama
Series · 1956
Peek-a-boo
Film · 1954
Trust Me!
Film · 1954
Midnight... Quai de Bercy
Film · 1953
Good Enough to Eat
Film · 1951
Ils ont vingt ans
Film · 1950
The Sad Sack
Film · 1950
The Killer is Listening
Film · 1948
Frédérica
Film · 1942