Gérard Oury

Known for DirectingBorn 1919-04-29Died 2006-07-19Paris, France

Gérard Oury (born Max-Gérard Houry Tannenbaum; 29 April 1919 – 20 July 2006) was a French film director, actor and writer. He is best known for a number of comedies he directed and co-wrote between the 1960s and 1980s, most notably The Sucker (1965), Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (1966), The Brain (1969), The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973), and Ace of Aces (1982). Max-Gérard Houry-Tannenbaum was the only son of Serge Tannenbaum, a violinist of Russian-Jewish origin, and French Jewish Marcelle Houry, a journalist and art critic. Tannenbaum was absent from the life of Oury and he was raised in an unobservant house of his mother and maternal grandmother Berthe Goldner. Oury studied at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and then at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art. He became a member of the Comédie-Française before World War II, but fled with all his family (mother, grandmother and unofficial wife, actress Jacqueline Roman) to Switzerland to escape the anti-Jewish persecutions by the Vichy government. When in 1942 his daughter Danièle Thompson was born, his fatherhood was concealed, to avoid her classification as a Jew. After 1945 he returned to the liberated Paris and restarted his career as an actor, performing in the theatre and in supporting roles in the cinema. Oury became a movie director in 1959 (The Itchy Palm) and gained his first success in 1961 with Crime Does Not Pay (Le crime ne paie pas). Pairing André Bourvil and Louis de Funès as a comic duo, he burst into commercial filmmaking with 1965's The Sucker (Le corniaud). The film was entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival. The following year, Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (La Grande Vadrouille) was even more successful, attracting the largest audiences ever in France (17.27 million admissions). This box-office record stood for decades, only surpassed in 1997 by Titanic from James Cameron. Oury shot the 1969 comedy Le Cerveau (The Brain) in English, starring David Niven in the lead role as a criminal mastermind. With actress Jacqueline Roman, he was the father of French writer Danièle Thompson and grandfather of actor/writer Christopher Thompson. He lived together with the French actress Michèle Morgan for the second half of his life. He died aged 87 in Saint-Tropez on 20 July 2006. Source: Article "Gérard Oury" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.Read more

Movies & web series

Spécial cinéma

Loves of Three Queens

Endless Horizons

Sorceror

Belmondo: The Incorrigible

Apostrophes

Cinépanorama

Le Grand Échiquier

Heroes and Sinners

À bout portant

Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!

The Fate of Two Queens

À la recherche de... Pierre Richard

Sur la route de la grande vadrouille

Delusions of Grandeur

Little Nothings

The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob

The Itchy Palm

The Four of Moana

The Sucker

The Brain

Ace of Aces

The Secret of Mayerling

Umbrella Coup

The Best Part

The Mirror Has Two Faces

Champs-Elysées

Les Rois de la comédie

Here Is the Beauty

Jo la Romance

The Prize

Out of It

The Heart of the Matter

Back to the Wall

Father Brown

House of Secrets

Nulle part ailleurs

The Sword and the Rose

The Mirror Has Two Faces

The Night Is My Kingdom

Without Leaving an Address

The Journey

Witness in the City

Les Rendez-vous du dimanche

A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later

Samedi soir

Come Dance with Me!

Mr. Peek-a-Boo