| Gérard Oury | |
| Birthname: | Max-Gérard Houry Tannenbaum |
| Birth Date: | 29 April 1919 |
| Birth Place: | Paris, France |
| Death Place: | Saint-Tropez, France |
| Years Active: | 1942–2003 |
Gérard Oury (born Max-Gérard Houry Tannenbaum; 29 April 1919 – 20 July 2006) was a French film director, actor and writer.
Max-Gérard Houry-Tannenbaum was the only son of Serge Tannenbaum, a violinist of Russian-Jewish origin,[1] and French Jewish Marcelle Houry, a journalist and art critic.[2] Tannenbaum was absent from the life of Oury and he was raised in an unobservant house of his mother and maternal grandmother Berthe Goldner.[3] 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) 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.[3]
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 () 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.[4] 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.[5]
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.[6]
| Actor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
| 1942 | Les Petits Riens | Philinte | Raymond Leboursier | |
| 1947 | Antoine and Antoinette | a customer | Jacques Becker | |
| 1949 | Jo la Romance | Roland Grenier | Gilles Grangier | |
| 1949 | Du Guesclin | Charles V of France | Bernard Delatour | |
| 1950 | La Souricière | Petit rôle | Henri Calef | Uncredited |
| 1949 | La Belle que voilà | Bruno | Jean-Paul Le Chanois | |
| 1951 | Without Leaving an Address | a journalist | Jean-Paul Le Chanois | |
| 1951 | Mr. Peek-a-Boo | Maurice | Jean Boyer | |
| 1951 | The Night Is My Kingdom | Lionel Moreau | Georges Lacombe | |
| 1952 | Le Costaud des Batignolles | Récitant / Narrator | Guy Lacourt | Voice |
| 1953 | Endless Horizons | Jean Dréville | Voice | |
| 1953 | Sea Devils | Napoleon | Raoul Walsh | |
| 1953 | The Sword and the Rose | the Dauphin | Ken Annakin | |
| 1953 | The Heart of the Matter | Yusef | George More O'Ferrall | |
| 1954 | They Who Dare | Captain George Two | Lewis Milestone | |
| 1954 | Father Brown | Inspector Dubois | Robert Hamer | |
| 1954 | Loves of Three Queens | Napoleon Bonaparte | Marc Allégret and Edgar G. Ulmer | (segment: Napoleon and Josephine) |
| 1954 | The River Girl | Enzo Cinti | Mario Soldati | |
| 1954 | I cavalieri dell'illusione | Napoleone Bonaparte | Marc Allégret | |
| 1955 | The Heroes Are Tired | Villeterre | Yves Ciampi | |
| 1956 | La Meilleure Part | Gérard Bailly - un ingénieur | Yves Allégret | |
| 1956 | House of Secrets | Julius Pindar | Guy Green | |
| 1957 | Méfiez-vous fillettes | Marcel Palmer | Yves Allégret | |
| 1958 | Le Septième Ciel | Maurice Portal | Raymond Bernard | |
| 1958 | Back to the Wall | Jacques Decrey | Édouard Molinaro | |
| 1958 | Le Miroir à deux faces | Doctor Bosc | André Cayatte | |
| 1959 | The Journey | Teklel Hafouli | Anatole Litvak | |
| 1960 | La Main chaude | Cameo Appearance | Gérard Oury | Uncredited |
| 1961 | The Menace | Le docteur | Gérard Oury | |
| 1963 | The Prize | Doctor Claude Marceau | Mark Robson | |
| 1986 | Un spectateur de '40 ans déjà' | Claude Lelouch | Uncredited | |
| 2003 | Là-haut, un roi au-dessus des nuages | Le général de La Motte-Noire | Pierre Schoendoerffer | (final film role) |
| Director | ||||
| Year | Title | Cast | Notes | |
| 1960 | with Jacques Charrier and Macha Méril | also credited as writer | ||
| 1961 | with Robert Hossein and Marie-José Nat | |||
| 1962 | Crime Does Not Pay | Danielle Darrieux, Michèle Morgan, Edwige Feuillère, Gino Cervi, Gabriele Ferzetti, Annie Girardot, Pierre Brasseur, and others | also credited as writer | |
| 1965 | The Sucker | starring Bourvil and Louis de Funès | also credited as writer | |
| 1966 | La Grande Vadrouille | starring Bourvil, Louis de Funès and Terry-Thomas | also credited as writer | |
| 1969 | The Brain | Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bourvil, David Niven, Eli Wallach and others | also credited as writer | |
| 1971 | Delusions of Grandeur | starring Louis de Funès and Yves Montand | also credited as writer | |
| 1973 | The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob | starring Louis de Funès | also credited as writer | |
| 1978 | La Carapate | starring Pierre Richard | also credited as writer | |
| 1980 | The Umbrella Coup | starring Pierre Richard | also credited as writer | |
| 1982 | The Ace of Aces / The Super Ace | starring Jean-Paul Belmondo | also credited as writer | |
| 1984 | La vengeance du serpent à plumes | starring Coluche, and Josiane Balasko | also credited as writer | |
| 1987 | with Richard Anconina, and Michel Boujenah | also credited as writer | ||
| 1993 | La Soif de l'or | with Tsilla Chelton, Catherine Jacob, Christian Clavier and others | also credited as writer | |
| 1996 | with Philippe Noiret, and Gérard Jugnot | |||
| 1999 | Le schpountz | with Smaïn, Sabine Azéma and others | also credited as writer | |
| Writer only | ||||
| Year | Title | Cast | Notes | |
| 1960 | Come Dance with Me! | starring Brigitte Bardot | adaptation | |
| 1996 | The Mirror Has Two Faces | with Barbra Streisand, Jeff Bridges, Pierce Brosnan and others | Remake of Le Miroir à deux faces (1958) | |