View allAll Photos Tagged 31...Thanks
No HDR but DRI 5RAW, dxo, cs5
Belle ile en mer, morbihan, bretagne, france
Pour mieux apprécier, appuyez sur "L"
For a better view, press "L"
Explore Front Page 04/11/2010 #31 Thanks so much my friends :-)
Having some fun with this 😁!!
KP Treat This #350 ~~ July 1 to July 31 thanks to Xandra for the source image shown in the first comment box flic.kr/p/2rcYwvg
KP Treat This #350 ~~ July 1 to July 31 thanks to Xandra for the source image shown in the first comment box flic.kr/p/2rcZ8TB
2020-31
_________________________________
thanks for your visits, faves and comments!
much appreciated!
We managed to get down to Yosemite for a beautiful winter day. It snowed the day before and the paths were pretty much frozen everywhere making it a pretty slick experience - quite literally.
Looks like this hit explore on 12/31. Thanks to everyone for the faves and comments.
The setting sun on October 31. Thanks all in the October 2014: A month in 31 pictures group. That was fun!
For all those who commented and faved my water splashes. It means a lot to me. I'm very proud of this one. It may be my favorite so far.
For this I used a black cast iron pan with water to get the black background. Speedlite 430 EX ll set to lowest power and aimed directly at the drop (about 2 inches away) to illuminate only the drop. Food coloring with a bit of milk in the eyedropper.
Exposure at 1/200
Aperture f16
ISO - 200
Explore FP - July 31 - thanks for your support.
On my way to Bankhead Forest I picked up a couple of breakfast biscuits at the Warrior Trading Post in Wren. I ate one on the way and enjoyed the other while I watched the sun come up at Upper Caney Creek Falls.
Explore: Nov 14, 2010 #31
Thanks for all the visits, faves, and comments.
Fabulous colours in the afternoon sun today
Explored #31 - Thanks Everyone for you faves and comments
Gargantas de Kakoueta (Kakuetta) situadas al sur de francia en el pais vasco frances. Euskal Herria.
Gorges Kakoueta ( Kakuetta ) located south of france. Basque Country.
Explore 2015/01/31. Thanks!
EXPLORE FP no. 31 ... thanks you guys, you`re the best. I'm taking a day off from the house otherwise I'll go batty. I'm off to the 'group' and be back with you in a little bit to comment and go through your streams to see what I've missed. I guess it's going to take a while ... but I'll be there.
Thank you all my wonderful friends for your daily visits, your kind comments and fav'ing my photographs.
On the weekends, I'll only be commenting from the Flickr group Applauding Talent Around the World ... hope to see you there.
Invites are appreciated, but please ... NO MULTIPLES INVITES IN THE SAME COMMENT or LARGE ANIMATED ONES. View larger photos on black at Andrea Kollo's Flickriver. Don't use this image on websites, blogs or
other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
Calliope Hummingbirds are the smallest North American hummingbirds. They are now migrating south through the Davis Mountains.
I really messed up on my 365! I formatted my card with all my August 1st photos on it. Such a disappointment! I may just post two from July 31.
Thanks, everyone for the nice comments and faves!
Explore #31...Thanks everyone!
A re-edit of a photo I posted a couple of weeks ago. I brightened it up and did something else...can't really remember what though :-)
Happy photo manipulation Friday (I just made it up)
It's time to celebrate this month's winners of the A-Z Doll Photography Challenge for themes D, E and F.
From beautifully styled Poppy Parkers to adorably fan-crazed Momokos, these were some fantastic photos!
Below are links to the winners' photos:
D- Dapper or Darling Duo by Dave Doll Town: www.flickr.com/photos/89174265@N06/24632032420/
E - Eiffel Tower by Alexandra:
www.flickr.com/photos/enigma02211/27489629372/
F - Fandom by LilyQueens: www.flickr.com/photos/lilyqueens/27779705806/
Photos for this month's four themes are due by Sunday, July 31.
Thanks to everyone who submitted and voted--you are making this group so much fun!
Shot for Our Daily Challenge : "Technology".
Our Daily Topic: "Housework".
Explore #31 - Thanks everyone!
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 33102.
French actor of Spanish origin ,b>Louis de Funès (1914 – 1983) was one of the giants of French comedy alongside André Bourvil and Fernandel. In many of his over 130 films, he portrayed a humorously excitable, cranky man with a propensity to hyperactivity, bad faith, and uncontrolled fits of anger. Along with his short height (1.63 m) and his facial contortions, this hyperactivity produced a highly comic effect, especially opposite Bourvil, who always played calm, slightly naive, good-humored men.
Louis de Funès (French pronunciation: [lwi də fynɛs]) was born Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza in Courbevoie, France in 1914. His father, Carlos Luis de Funès de Galarza had been a lawyer in Seville, Spain, but became a diamond cutter upon arriving in France. His mother, Leonor Soto Reguera was of Spanish and Portuguese extraction. Since the couple's families opposed their marriage, they settled in France in 1904. Known to friends and intimates as ‘Fufu’, the young de Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing and spoke French, Spanish and English well. He studied at the prestigious Lycée Condorcet in Paris. He showed a penchant for tomfoolery, something which caused him trouble at school and later made it hard for him to hold down a job. He became a pianist, working mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, the famous red-light district. There he made his customers laugh each time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. It proved to be a waste of time except for his meeting with actor Daniel Gélin, who would become a close friend. In 1936, he married Germaine Louise Elodie Carroyer with whom he had a son, Daniel (1937). In 1942, they divorced. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, Jeanne Barthelémy de Maupassant, a grandniece of the famous author Guy de Maupassant. They married in 1943 and remained together for forty years, until de Funès' death in 1983. The pair had two sons: Patrick (1944) and Olivier (1947). Patrick became a doctor who now practices in Saint-Germain en Laye. Olivier was an actor for a while, known for the son roles in his father's films, including Le Grand Restaurant/The Big Restaurant (1966, Jacques Besnard), Fantômas se déchaine/Fantomas Strikes Back (1965, André Hunebelle) starring Jean Marais, Les Grandes Vacances/The Big Vacation (1967, Jean Girault), and Hibernatus (1969, Edouard Molinaro) with Claude Gensac as De Funès’ wife, a role she played in many of his films. Olivier later worked as an aviator for Air France Europe.
Through the early 1940's, Louis de Funès continued playing piano at clubs, thinking there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gélin encouraged him to overcome his fear of rejection. De Funès began his show business career in the theatre, where he enjoyed moderate success. At the age of 31, thanks to his contact with Daniel Gélin, he made his film debut with an uncredited bit part as a porter in La Tentation de Barbizon/The Temptation of Barbizon (1945, Jean Stelli) starring Simone Renant. For the next ten years, de Funès would appear in fifty films, but always in minor roles, usually as an extra, scarcely noticed by the audience. Sometimes he had a supporting part such as in the Fernandel comedy Boniface somnambule/The Sleepwalker (1951, Maurice Labro) and the comedy-drama La vie d'un honnête homme/The Virtuous Scoundrel (1953, Sacha Guitry) starring Michel Simon. In the meanwhile he pursued a theatrical career. Even after he attained the status of film star, he continued to play theatre. His stage career culminated in a magnificent performance in the play Oscar, a role which he would later reprise in the film version of 1967. During this period, De Funès developed a pattern of daily activities: in the morning he did dubbing for recognized artists such as Renato Rascel and the Italian comic Totò, during the afternoon he worked in film, and in the theater in the evening. A break came when he appeared as the black-market pork butcher Jambier (another small role) in the well-known WWII comedy, La Traversée de Paris/ Four Bags Full (1956, Claude Autant-Lara) starring Jean Gabin and Bourvil. In his next film, the mediocre comedy Comme un cheveu sur la soupe/ Crazy in the Noodle (1957, Maurice Régamey), De Funès finally played the leading role. More interesting was Ni vu, ni connu/Neither Seen Nor Recognized (1958, Yves Robert). He achieved stardom with the comedy Pouic-Pouic (1963, Jean Girault) opposite Mireille Darc. This success film guaranteed de Funès top billing in all of his subsequent films.
Between 1964 and 1979, Louis de Funès topped France's box-office of the year's most successful films seven times. At the age of 49, De Funès unexpectedly became a superstar with the international success of two films. Fantômas (1964, André Hunebelle) was France's own answer to the James Bond frenzy and lead to a trilogy co-starring Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot. The second success was the crime comedy Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez/The Gendarme of St. Tropez (1964, Jean Girault) with Michel Galabru. After their first successful collaboration on Pouic-Pouic, director Girault had perceived de Funès as the ideal actor to play the part of the accident prone gendarme. The film lead to a series of six 'Gendarme' films. De Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of de Funès with Bourvil, another great comic actor, in Le Corniaud/The Sucker (1964, Gérard Oury). The successful partnership was repeated two years later in La Grande Vadrouille/Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At (1966, Gérard Oury), one of the most successful and the largest grossing film ever made in France, drawing an audience of 17,27 million. It remains his greatest success. Oury envisaged a further reunion of the two comics in his historical comedy La Folie des grandeurs/Delusions of Grandeur (1970, Gérard Oury), but Bourvil's death in 1970 led to the unlikely pairing of de Funès with Yves Montand in this film. Very succesful, even in the USA, was Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973, Gérard Oury) with Suzy Delair. De Funès played a bigoted Frenchman who finds himself forced to impersonate a popular rabbi while on the run from a group of assassins. In 1975, Oury had scheduled to make Le Crocodile/The Crocodile with de Funès as a South American dictator, but in March 1975, the actor was hospitalized for heart problems and forced to take a rest from acting. The Crocodile project was canceled.
After his recovery, Louis de Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, in a departure from his usual image. Zidi wrote for him L'aile ou la cuisse/The Wing and the Thigh (1976, Claude Zidi), opposite Coluche as his son. He played a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, who is waging a war against fast food entrepreneur. It was a new character full of nuances and frankness and arguably the best of his roles. In 1980, de Funès realised a long-standing dream to make a film version of Molière's play, L'Avare/The Miser (1980, Louis de Funès, Jean Girault). In 1982, De Funès made his final film, Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes/Never Play Clever Again (1982, Tony Aboyantz, Jean Girault). Unlike the characters he played, de Funès was said to be a very shy person in real life. He became a knight of France's Légion d'honneur in 1973. He resided in the Château de Clermont, a 17th-century monument, located in the commune of Le Cellier, which is situated near Nantes in France. In his later years, he suffered from a heart condition after having suffered a heart attack caused by straining himself too much with his stage antics. Louis de Funès died of a massive stroke in 1983, a few months after making Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, the cemetery situated in the grounds of the château. Films de France: “Although fame was a long time coming, Louis de Funès is regarded today as not just a great comic actor with an unfaltering ability to make his audience laugh, but practically an institution in his own right. His many films bear testimony to the extent of his comic genius and demonstrate the tragedy that he never earned the international recognition that he certainly deserved.”
Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Films de France, Wikipedia and IMDb.
Time to chill out, to relax, to enjoy the sound of nature.
Un peu de detente le week end, pour se relaxer, pour une petite ballade dans la Nature ...
Seen in the Explore / Interestingness - highest # 31 - Thanks.
Sorry, no group images, Thanks
Here's Pix 5 of 6 with Family Lines GP16 4702 along with SCL SD45 2036 & engine U36B 1767 - pix taken from an overhead location in Pelham, Alabama & the train is about to go under U. S. Highway 31. Thanks go to John Browning for giving me this location. Canon New F-1, Canon FD 50mm 1.8 Lens, color slide film, Epson 4990 scan. DATE: N/A
"Nor love, nor honour, wealth nor pow'r,
Can give the heart a cheerful hour
When health is lost. Be timely wise;
With health all taste of pleasure flies."
- John Gay, Fables (1727), Part I. Fable 31
Thanks a lot for visits and comments, my friends...!
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without
my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
This rare image was taken looking west toward the Newcastle- Carlisle route near the curve just before the Derwent rail bridge and Skiff level crossing.
This would have been a local trip working from Tyne Yard.
However, the use of a class 56 on the trip is very unusual if not unique? Classes 31 or 37 were most common. A class 03 trip working from Tyne Yard used to serve these and nearby sidings in the 1970’s early 80’s.
The whole area has been redeveloped in the years since and is unrecognisable to what is seen here.
The A1114 Riverside way road has been built over this view .
I only got to work into these sidings once in 1986 on a class 31.
Thanks to fellow driver Mick Ingedew for allowing me to share these images here.
Happy Easter to all of you dear Flickr's Friends
Explored 2018.03.31 :) thanks to all of you dear friends
French postcard in the series Portraits de Stars by L'aventure carto, no. 8, 2003. Photo: Marcel Thomas / Collection Gérard Gagnepain.
French actor of Spanish origin Louis de Funès (1914-1983) was one of the giants of French comedy alongside André Bourvil and Fernandel. In many of his over 130 films, he portrayed a humorously excitable, cranky man with a propensity to hyperactivity, bad faith, and uncontrolled fits of anger. Along with his short height (1.63 m) and his facial contortions, this hyperactivity produced a highly comic effect, especially opposite Bourvil, who always played calm, slightly naive, good-humored men.
Louis de Funès (French pronunciation: [lwi də fynɛs]) was born Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza in Courbevoie, France in 1914. His father, Carlos Luis de Funès de Galarza had been a lawyer in Seville, Spain, but became a diamond cutter upon arriving in France. His mother, Leonor Soto Reguera was of Spanish and Portuguese extraction. Since the couple's families opposed their marriage, they settled in France in 1904. Known to friends and intimates as ‘Fufu’, the young De Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing and spoke French, Spanish, and English well. He studied at the prestigious Lycée Condorcet in Paris. He showed a penchant for tomfoolery, something which caused him trouble at school and later made it hard for him to hold down a job. He became a pianist, working mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, the famous red-light district. There he made his customers laugh each time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. It proved to be a waste of time except for his meeting with actor Daniel Gélin, who would become a close friend. In 1936, he married Germaine Louise Elodie Carroyer with whom he had a son, Daniel (1937). In 1942, they divorced. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, Jeanne Barthelémy de Maupassant, a grandniece of the famous author Guy de Maupassant. They married in 1943 and remained together for forty years until De Funès' death in 1983. The pair had two sons: Patrick (1944) and Olivier (1947). Patrick became a doctor who practiced in Saint-Germain en Laye. Olivier was an actor for a while, known for the son roles in his father's films, including Le Grand Restaurant/The Big Restaurant (Jacques Besnard, 1966), Fantômas se déchaine/Fantomas Strikes Back (André Hunebelle, 1965) starring Jean Marais, Les Grandes Vacances/The Big Vacation (Jean Girault, 1967), and Hibernatus (Edouard Molinaro, 1969) with Claude Gensac as De Funès’ wife, a role she played in many of his films. Olivier later worked as an aviator for Air France Europe.
Through the early 1940s, Louis de Funès continued playing piano at clubs, thinking there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gélin encouraged him to overcome his fear of rejection. De Funès began his show business career in the theatre, where he enjoyed moderate success. At the age of 31, thanks to his contact with Daniel Gélin, he made his film debut with an uncredited bit part as a porter in La Tentation de Barbizon/The Temptation of Barbizon (1945, Jean Stelli) starring Simone Renant. For the next ten years, de Funès would appear in fifty films, but always in minor roles, usually as an extra, scarcely noticed by the audience. Sometimes he had a supporting part such as in the Fernandel comedy Boniface somnambule/The Sleepwalker (Maurice Labro, 1951) and the comedy-drama La vie d'un honnête homme/The Virtuous Scoundrel (Sacha Guitry, 1953) starring Michel Simon. In the meanwhile, he pursued a theatrical career. Even after he attained the status of a film star, he continued to play theatre. His stage career culminated in a magnificent performance in the play Oscar, a role which he would later reprise in the film version of 1967. During this period, De Funès developed a pattern of daily activities: in the morning he did dubbing for recognized artists such as Renato Rascel and the Italian comic Totò, during the afternoon he worked in film, and in the theater in the evening. A break came when he appeared as the black-market pork butcher Jambier (another small role) in the well-known WWII comedy, La Traversée de Paris/Four Bags Full (Claude Autant-Lara, 1956) starring Jean Gabin and Bourvil. In his next film, the mediocre comedy Comme un cheveu sur la soupe/Crazy in the Noodle (Maurice Régamey, 1957), De Funès finally played the leading role. More interesting was Ni vu, ni connu/Neither Seen Nor Recognized (Yves Robert, 1958). He achieved stardom with the comedy Pouic-Pouic (Jean Girault, 1963) opposite Mireille Darc. This successful film guaranteed De Funès top billing in all of his subsequent films.
Between 1964 and 1979, Louis de Funès topped France's box office of the year's most successful films seven times. At the age of 49, De Funès unexpectedly became a superstar with the international success of two films. Fantômas (André Hunebelle, 1964) was France's own answer to the James Bond frenzy and lead to a trilogy co-starring Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot. The second success was the crime comedy Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez/The Gendarme of St. Tropez (Jean Girault, 1964) with Michel Galabru. After their first successful collaboration on Pouic-Pouic, director Girault had perceived De Funès as the ideal actor to play the part of the accident-prone gendarme. The film led to a series of six 'Gendarme' films. De Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of de Funès with Bourvil, another great comic actor, in Le Corniaud/The Sucker (Gérard Oury, 1964). The successful partnership was repeated two years later in La Grande Vadrouille/Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At (Gérard Oury, 1966), one of the most successful and the largest grossing film ever made in France, drawing an audience of 17,27 million. It remains his greatest success. Oury envisaged a further reunion of the two comics in his historical comedy La Folie des grandeurs/Delusions of Grandeur (Gérard Oury, 1970), but Bourvil's death in 1970 led to the unlikely pairing of de Funès with Yves Montand in this film. Very successful, even in the USA, was Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Gérard Oury, 1973) with Suzy Delair. De Funès played a bigoted Frenchman who finds himself forced to impersonate a popular rabbi while on the run from a group of assassins. In 1975, Oury had scheduled to make Le Crocodile/The Crocodile with De Funès as a South American dictator, but in March 1975, the actor was hospitalised for heart problems and was forced to take a rest from acting. The Crocodile project was canceled.
After his recovery, Louis de Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, in a departure from his usual image. Zidi wrote for him L'aile ou la cuisse/The Wing and the Thigh (Claude Zidi, 1976), opposite Coluche as his son. He played a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, who is waging a war against a fast-food entrepreneur. It was a new character full of nuances and frankness and arguably the best of his roles. In 1980, De Funès realised a long-standing dream to make a film version of Molière's play, L'Avare/The Miser (Louis de Funès, Jean Girault, 1980). In 1982, De Funès made his final film, Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes/Never Play Clever Again (Tony Aboyantz, Jean Girault, 1982). Unlike the characters he played, de Funès was said to be a very shy person in real life. He became a knight of France's Légion d'honneur in 1973. He resided in the Château de Clermont, a 17th-century monument, located in the commune of Le Cellier, which is situated near Nantes in France. In his later years, he suffered from a heart condition after having suffered a heart attack caused by straining himself too much with his stage antics. Louis de Funès died of a massive stroke in 1983, a few months after making Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, the cemetery situated in the grounds of the château. Films de France: “Although fame was a long time coming, Louis de Funès is regarded today as not just a great comic actor with an unfaltering ability to make his audience laugh, but practically an institution in his own right. His many films bear testimony to the extent of his comic genius and demonstrate the tragedy that he never earned the international recognition that he certainly deserved.”
Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
French actor of Spanish origin Louis de Funès (1914-1983) was one of the giants of French comedy alongside André Bourvil and Fernandel. In many of his over 130 films, he portrayed a humorously excitable, cranky man with a propensity to hyperactivity, bad faith, and uncontrolled fits of anger. Along with his short height (1.63 m) and his facial contortions, this hyperactivity produced a highly comic effect, especially opposite Bourvil, who always played calm, slightly naive, good-humored men.
Louis de Funès (French pronunciation: [lwi də fynɛs]) was born Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza in Courbevoie, France in 1914. His father, Carlos Luis de Funès de Galarza had been a lawyer in Seville, Spain, but became a diamond cutter upon arriving in France. His mother, Leonor Soto Reguera was of Spanish and Portuguese extraction. Since the couple's families opposed their marriage, they settled in France in 1904. Known to friends and intimates as ‘Fufu’, the young De Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing and spoke French, Spanish, and English well. He studied at the prestigious Lycée Condorcet in Paris. He showed a penchant for tomfoolery, something which caused him trouble at school and later made it hard for him to hold down a job. He became a pianist, working mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, the famous red-light district. There he made his customers laugh each time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. It proved to be a waste of time except for his meeting with actor Daniel Gélin, who would become a close friend. In 1936, he married Germaine Louise Elodie Carroyer with whom he had a son, Daniel (1937). In 1942, they divorced. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, Jeanne Barthelémy de Maupassant, a grandniece of the famous author Guy de Maupassant. They married in 1943 and remained together for forty years until De Funès' death in 1983. The pair had two sons: Patrick (1944) and Olivier (1947). Patrick became a doctor who practiced in Saint-Germain en Laye. Olivier was an actor for a while, known for the son roles in his father's films, including Le Grand Restaurant/The Big Restaurant (Jacques Besnard, 1966), Fantômas se déchaine/Fantomas Strikes Back (André Hunebelle, 1965) starring Jean Marais, Les Grandes Vacances/The Big Vacation (Jean Girault, 1967), and Hibernatus (Edouard Molinaro, 1969) with Claude Gensac as De Funès’ wife, a role she played in many of his films. Olivier later worked as an aviator for Air France Europe.
Through the early 1940s, Louis de Funès continued playing piano at clubs, thinking there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gélin encouraged him to overcome his fear of rejection. De Funès began his show business career in the theatre, where he enjoyed moderate success. At the age of 31, thanks to his contact with Daniel Gélin, he made his film debut with an uncredited bit part as a porter in La Tentation de Barbizon/The Temptation of Barbizon (1945, Jean Stelli) starring Simone Renant. For the next ten years, de Funès would appear in fifty films, but always in minor roles, usually as an extra, scarcely noticed by the audience. Sometimes he had a supporting part such as in the Fernandel comedy Boniface somnambule/The Sleepwalker (Maurice Labro, 1951) and the comedy-drama La vie d'un honnête homme/The Virtuous Scoundrel (Sacha Guitry, 1953) starring Michel Simon. In the meanwhile, he pursued a theatrical career. Even after he attained the status of a film star, he continued to play theatre. His stage career culminated in a magnificent performance in the play Oscar, a role which he would later reprise in the film version of 1967. During this period, De Funès developed a pattern of daily activities: in the morning he did dubbing for recognized artists such as Renato Rascel and the Italian comic Totò, during the afternoon he worked in film, and in the theater in the evening. A break came when he appeared as the black-market pork butcher Jambier (another small role) in the well-known WWII comedy, La Traversée de Paris/Four Bags Full (Claude Autant-Lara, 1956) starring Jean Gabin and Bourvil. In his next film, the mediocre comedy Comme un cheveu sur la soupe/Crazy in the Noodle (Maurice Régamey, 1957), De Funès finally played the leading role. More interesting was Ni vu, ni connu/Neither Seen Nor Recognized (Yves Robert, 1958). He achieved stardom with the comedy Pouic-Pouic (Jean Girault, 1963) opposite Mireille Darc. This successful film guaranteed De Funès top billing in all of his subsequent films.
Between 1964 and 1979, Louis de Funès topped France's box office of the year's most successful films seven times. At the age of 49, De Funès unexpectedly became a superstar with the international success of two films. Fantômas (André Hunebelle, 1964) was France's own answer to the James Bond frenzy and lead to a trilogy co-starring Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot. The second success was the crime comedy Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez/The Gendarme of St. Tropez (Jean Girault, 1964) with Michel Galabru. After their first successful collaboration on Pouic-Pouic, director Girault had perceived De Funès as the ideal actor to play the part of the accident-prone gendarme. The film led to a series of six 'Gendarme' films. De Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of de Funès with Bourvil, another great comic actor, in Le Corniaud/The Sucker (Gérard Oury, 1964). The successful partnership was repeated two years later in La Grande Vadrouille/Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At (Gérard Oury, 1966), one of the most successful and the largest grossing film ever made in France, drawing an audience of 17,27 million. It remains his greatest success. Oury envisaged a further reunion of the two comics in his historical comedy La Folie des grandeurs/Delusions of Grandeur (Gérard Oury, 1970), but Bourvil's death in 1970 led to the unlikely pairing of de Funès with Yves Montand in this film. Very successful, even in the USA, was Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Gérard Oury, 1973) with Suzy Delair. De Funès played a bigoted Frenchman who finds himself forced to impersonate a popular rabbi while on the run from a group of assassins. In 1975, Oury had scheduled to make Le Crocodile/The Crocodile with De Funès as a South American dictator, but in March 1975, the actor was hospitalised for heart problems and was forced to take a rest from acting. The Crocodile project was canceled.
After his recovery, Louis de Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, in a departure from his usual image. Zidi wrote for him L'aile ou la cuisse/The Wing and the Thigh (Claude Zidi, 1976), opposite Coluche as his son. He played a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, who is waging a war against a fast-food entrepreneur. It was a new character full of nuances and frankness and arguably the best of his roles. In 1980, De Funès realised a long-standing dream to make a film version of Molière's play, L'Avare/The Miser (Louis de Funès, Jean Girault, 1980). In 1982, De Funès made his final film, Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes/Never Play Clever Again (Tony Aboyantz, Jean Girault, 1982). Unlike the characters he played, de Funès was said to be a very shy person in real life. He became a knight of France's Légion d'honneur in 1973. He resided in the Château de Clermont, a 17th-century monument, located in the commune of Le Cellier, which is situated near Nantes in France. In his later years, he suffered from a heart condition after having suffered a heart attack caused by straining himself too much with his stage antics. Louis de Funès died of a massive stroke in 1983, a few months after making Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, the cemetery situated in the grounds of the château. Films de France: “Although fame was a long time coming, Louis de Funès is regarded today as not just a great comic actor with an unfaltering ability to make his audience laugh, but practically an institution in his own right. His many films bear testimony to the extent of his comic genius and demonstrate the tragedy that he never earned the international recognition that he certainly deserved.”
Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Update: This shot made it onto Flickr Explore/Interesting pages for 12 December 2006 reaching number 31.
Thanks everybody for all the views, comments & faves!
Hello everyone! It's been a LOOOOOONNNNG minute. I want to apologize for negating this wonderful community for too long. I've missed you all.
This is a very simple portrait. I wanted to achieve a "cinematic toning" with the finalized image like they do in the big summer Hollywood blockbusters. I came about this type of styling by studying a wonderful video on Pinterest (sorry I can't find the link) of how motion picture studios perform their color toning.
You can view a Before/After of this image on
I am now also selling PSDs to several of my images.
You can purchase directly from my site.
www.thearmandjohnson.com/products
Use Code: psd10 at checkout to receive 10% off until midnight 7/31.
Thanks!
P.S. DO NOT post any notes on any of my images. Thank you! :)
© 2014. All Rights Reserved. Use of this image is prohibited without the expressed written permission of Armand Johnson.
Remember! I'm still in the social sphere!
Twitter:@dajizzle
Instagram:@thearmandjohnson
Finally got my Photocheckout in Place Skateboardmag #31.
Thanks to Christoph Reich for his awesome skating, Benni Markstein, for giving me the opportunity of getting introduced in one of german's biggest Skateboardmagazines and thanks to skateboarding!
strobist info:
1 Nikon Sb-24 cam right
1 Nikon Sb-25 cam left
1 Nikon Sb-25 lying behind ledge
Explored March 31. Thanks everyone for your fabulous support :-)
And thank you for the 7,000 views! :-)
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Great textures by pareeerica and dog ma
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I will be in China in August 2017. Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, and Dalian, plus other locations if needed. If you are female and willing to shoot with me, please message me before July 31. Thanks! Looking forward to seeing you! - CJ
Greetings,
We're happy to inform you that we've made our new man's suit update.
It has various colors and patterns of suits in recently.
It shows individual style of suits with various sensitivity and element.
In addition, customers who also wanted to complete a distinctive suit by themselves with their sensibility.
We will reflect this trend and update variety colors of suits in several times.
We are prepared blue series suits for first.
[ Color me Blue! ]
It is mixed trendy blue color and rhythmical check pattern.
A jacket and pants are required and vest is optional.
It's a semi-suit set which is possible to be rhythmic with jacket and pants.
You could mix and match by yourself in your taste.
* We will give an accessory from pictures as a special gift who order [Color me Blue] during July!
* Special gift - Giving one in Corsage, badge, ribbon tie, and white belt in random
Gift Presentation Period : 2016.07.01~07.31
Thanks for your interesting and love.
Freedomteller
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 128/69, 1969. Photo: Unifrance-Film.
French actor of Spanish origin Louis de Funès (1914-1983) was one of the giants of French comedy alongside André Bourvil and Fernandel. In many of his over 130 films, he portrayed a humorously excitable, cranky man with a propensity to hyperactivity, bad faith, and uncontrolled fits of anger. Along with his short height (1.63 m) and his facial contortions, this hyperactivity produced a highly comic effect, especially opposite Bourvil, who always played calm, slightly naive, good-humored men.
Louis de Funès (French pronunciation: [lwi də fynɛs]) was born Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza in Courbevoie, France in 1914. His father, Carlos Luis de Funès de Galarza had been a lawyer in Seville, Spain, but became a diamond cutter upon arriving in France. His mother, Leonor Soto Reguera was of Spanish and Portuguese extraction. Since the couple's families opposed their marriage, they settled in France in 1904. Known to friends and intimates as ‘Fufu’, the young De Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing and spoke French, Spanish, and English well. He studied at the prestigious Lycée Condorcet in Paris. He showed a penchant for tomfoolery, something which caused him trouble at school and later made it hard for him to hold down a job. He became a pianist, working mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, the famous red-light district. There he made his customers laugh each time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. It proved to be a waste of time except for his meeting with actor Daniel Gélin, who would become a close friend. In 1936, he married Germaine Louise Elodie Carroyer with whom he had a son, Daniel (1937). In 1942, they divorced. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, Jeanne Barthelémy de Maupassant, a grandniece of the famous author Guy de Maupassant. They married in 1943 and remained together for forty years until De Funès' death in 1983. The pair had two sons: Patrick (1944) and Olivier (1947). Patrick became a doctor who practiced in Saint-Germain en Laye. Olivier was an actor for a while, known for the son roles in his father's films, including Le Grand Restaurant/The Big Restaurant (Jacques Besnard, 1966), Fantômas se déchaine/Fantomas Strikes Back (André Hunebelle, 1965) starring Jean Marais, Les Grandes Vacances/The Big Vacation (Jean Girault, 1967), and Hibernatus (Edouard Molinaro, 1969) with Claude Gensac as De Funès’ wife, a role she played in many of his films. Olivier later worked as an aviator for Air France Europe.
Through the early 1940s, Louis de Funès continued playing piano at clubs, thinking there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gélin encouraged him to overcome his fear of rejection. De Funès began his show business career in the theatre, where he enjoyed moderate success. At the age of 31, thanks to his contact with Daniel Gélin, he made his film debut with an uncredited bit part as a porter in La Tentation de Barbizon/The Temptation of Barbizon (1945, Jean Stelli) starring Simone Renant. For the next ten years, de Funès would appear in fifty films, but always in minor roles, usually as an extra, scarcely noticed by the audience. Sometimes he had a supporting part such as in the Fernandel comedy Boniface somnambule/The Sleepwalker (Maurice Labro, 1951) and the comedy-drama La vie d'un honnête homme/The Virtuous Scoundrel (Sacha Guitry, 1953) starring Michel Simon. In the meanwhile, he pursued a theatrical career. Even after he attained the status of a film star, he continued to play theatre. His stage career culminated in a magnificent performance in the play Oscar, a role which he would later reprise in the film version of 1967. During this period, De Funès developed a pattern of daily activities: in the morning he did dubbing for recognized artists such as Renato Rascel and the Italian comic Totò, during the afternoon he worked in film, and in the theater in the evening. A break came when he appeared as the black-market pork butcher Jambier (another small role) in the well-known WWII comedy, La Traversée de Paris/Four Bags Full (Claude Autant-Lara, 1956) starring Jean Gabin and Bourvil. In his next film, the mediocre comedy Comme un cheveu sur la soupe/Crazy in the Noodle (Maurice Régamey, 1957), De Funès finally played the leading role. More interesting was Ni vu, ni connu/Neither Seen Nor Recognized (Yves Robert, 1958). He achieved stardom with the comedy Pouic-Pouic (Jean Girault, 1963) opposite Mireille Darc. This successful film guaranteed De Funès top billing in all of his subsequent films.
Between 1964 and 1979, Louis de Funès topped France's box office of the year's most successful films seven times. At the age of 49, De Funès unexpectedly became a superstar with the international success of two films. Fantômas (André Hunebelle, 1964) was France's own answer to the James Bond frenzy and lead to a trilogy co-starring Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot. The second success was the crime comedy Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez/The Gendarme of St. Tropez (Jean Girault, 1964) with Michel Galabru. After their first successful collaboration on Pouic-Pouic, director Girault had perceived De Funès as the ideal actor to play the part of the accident-prone gendarme. The film led to a series of six 'Gendarme' films. De Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of de Funès with Bourvil, another great comic actor, in Le Corniaud/The Sucker (Gérard Oury, 1964). The successful partnership was repeated two years later in La Grande Vadrouille/Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At (Gérard Oury, 1966), one of the most successful and the largest grossing film ever made in France, drawing an audience of 17,27 million. It remains his greatest success. Oury envisaged a further reunion of the two comics in his historical comedy La Folie des grandeurs/Delusions of Grandeur (Gérard Oury, 1970), but Bourvil's death in 1970 led to the unlikely pairing of de Funès with Yves Montand in this film. Very successful, even in the USA, was Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Gérard Oury, 1973) with Suzy Delair. De Funès played a bigoted Frenchman who finds himself forced to impersonate a popular rabbi while on the run from a group of assassins. In 1975, Oury had scheduled to make Le Crocodile/The Crocodile with De Funès as a South American dictator, but in March 1975, the actor was hospitalised for heart problems and was forced to take a rest from acting. The Crocodile project was canceled.
After his recovery, Louis de Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, in a departure from his usual image. Zidi wrote for him L'aile ou la cuisse/The Wing and the Thigh (Claude Zidi, 1976), opposite Coluche as his son. He played a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, who is waging a war against a fast-food entrepreneur. It was a new character full of nuances and frankness and arguably the best of his roles. In 1980, De Funès realised a long-standing dream to make a film version of Molière's play, L'Avare/The Miser (Louis de Funès, Jean Girault, 1980). In 1982, De Funès made his final film, Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes/Never Play Clever Again (Tony Aboyantz, Jean Girault, 1982). Unlike the characters he played, de Funès was said to be a very shy person in real life. He became a knight of France's Légion d'honneur in 1973. He resided in the Château de Clermont, a 17th-century monument, located in the commune of Le Cellier, which is situated near Nantes in France. In his later years, he suffered from a heart condition after having suffered a heart attack caused by straining himself too much with his stage antics. Louis de Funès died of a massive stroke in 1983, a few months after making Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, the cemetery situated in the grounds of the château. Films de France: “Although fame was a long time coming, Louis de Funès is regarded today as not just a great comic actor with an unfaltering ability to make his audience laugh, but practically an institution in his own right. His many films bear testimony to the extent of his comic genius and demonstrate the tragedy that he never earned the international recognition that he certainly deserved.”
Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
French postcard in the 'Les acteurs français vus par Solo' series by Carterie Occitane, Toulouse, no. 9. Illustration: Solo.
French actor of Spanish origin Louis de Funès (1914-1983) was one of the giants of French comedy alongside André Bourvil and Fernandel. In many of his over 130 films, he portrayed a humorously excitable, cranky man with a propensity to hyperactivity, bad faith, and uncontrolled fits of anger. Along with his short height (1.63 m) and his facial contortions, this hyperactivity produced a highly comic effect, especially opposite Bourvil, who always played calm, slightly naive, good-humored men.
Louis de Funès (French pronunciation: [lwi də fynɛs]) was born Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza in Courbevoie, France in 1914. His father, Carlos Luis de Funès de Galarza had been a lawyer in Seville, Spain, but became a diamond cutter upon arriving in France. His mother, Leonor Soto Reguera was of Spanish and Portuguese extraction. Since the couple's families opposed their marriage, they settled in France in 1904. Known to friends and intimates as ‘Fufu’, the young De Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing and spoke French, Spanish, and English well. He studied at the prestigious Lycée Condorcet in Paris. He showed a penchant for tomfoolery, something which caused him trouble at school and later made it hard for him to hold down a job. He became a pianist, working mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, the famous red-light district. There he made his customers laugh each time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. It proved to be a waste of time except for his meeting with actor Daniel Gélin, who would become a close friend. In 1936, he married Germaine Louise Elodie Carroyer with whom he had a son, Daniel (1937). In 1942, they divorced. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, Jeanne Barthelémy de Maupassant, a grandniece of the famous author Guy de Maupassant. They married in 1943 and remained together for forty years until De Funès' death in 1983. The pair had two sons: Patrick (1944) and Olivier (1947). Patrick became a doctor who practiced in Saint-Germain en Laye. Olivier was an actor for a while, known for the son roles in his father's films, including Le Grand Restaurant/The Big Restaurant (Jacques Besnard, 1966), Fantômas se déchaine/Fantomas Strikes Back (André Hunebelle, 1965) starring Jean Marais, Les Grandes Vacances/The Big Vacation (Jean Girault, 1967), and Hibernatus (Edouard Molinaro, 1969) with Claude Gensac as De Funès’ wife, a role she played in many of his films. Olivier later worked as an aviator for Air France Europe.
Through the early 1940s, Louis de Funès continued playing piano at clubs, thinking there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gélin encouraged him to overcome his fear of rejection. De Funès began his show business career in the theatre, where he enjoyed moderate success. At the age of 31, thanks to his contact with Daniel Gélin, he made his film debut with an uncredited bit part as a porter in La Tentation de Barbizon/The Temptation of Barbizon (1945, Jean Stelli) starring Simone Renant. For the next ten years, de Funès would appear in fifty films, but always in minor roles, usually as an extra, scarcely noticed by the audience. Sometimes he had a supporting part such as in the Fernandel comedy Boniface somnambule/The Sleepwalker (Maurice Labro, 1951) and the comedy-drama La vie d'un honnête homme/The Virtuous Scoundrel (Sacha Guitry, 1953) starring Michel Simon. In the meanwhile, he pursued a theatrical career. Even after he attained the status of a film star, he continued to play theatre. His stage career culminated in a magnificent performance in the play Oscar, a role which he would later reprise in the film version of 1967. During this period, De Funès developed a pattern of daily activities: in the morning he did dubbing for recognized artists such as Renato Rascel and the Italian comic Totò, during the afternoon he worked in film, and in the theater in the evening. A break came when he appeared as the black-market pork butcher Jambier (another small role) in the well-known WWII comedy, La Traversée de Paris/Four Bags Full (Claude Autant-Lara, 1956) starring Jean Gabin and Bourvil. In his next film, the mediocre comedy Comme un cheveu sur la soupe/Crazy in the Noodle (Maurice Régamey, 1957), De Funès finally played the leading role. More interesting was Ni vu, ni connu/Neither Seen Nor Recognized (Yves Robert, 1958). He achieved stardom with the comedy Pouic-Pouic (Jean Girault, 1963) opposite Mireille Darc. This successful film guaranteed De Funès top billing in all of his subsequent films.
Between 1964 and 1979, Louis de Funès topped France's box office of the year's most successful films seven times. At the age of 49, De Funès unexpectedly became a superstar with the international success of two films. Fantômas (André Hunebelle, 1964) was France's own answer to the James Bond frenzy and lead to a trilogy co-starring Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot. The second success was the crime comedy Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez/The Gendarme of St. Tropez (Jean Girault, 1964) with Michel Galabru. After their first successful collaboration on Pouic-Pouic, director Girault had perceived De Funès as the ideal actor to play the part of the accident-prone gendarme. The film led to a series of six 'Gendarme' films. De Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of de Funès with Bourvil, another great comic actor, in Le Corniaud/The Sucker (Gérard Oury, 1964). The successful partnership was repeated two years later in La Grande Vadrouille/Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At (Gérard Oury, 1966), one of the most successful and the largest grossing film ever made in France, drawing an audience of 17,27 million. It remains his greatest success. Oury envisaged a further reunion of the two comics in his historical comedy La Folie des grandeurs/Delusions of Grandeur (Gérard Oury, 1970), but Bourvil's death in 1970 led to the unlikely pairing of de Funès with Yves Montand in this film. Very successful, even in the USA, was Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Gérard Oury, 1973) with Suzy Delair. De Funès played a bigoted Frenchman who finds himself forced to impersonate a popular rabbi while on the run from a group of assassins. In 1975, Oury had scheduled to make Le Crocodile/The Crocodile with De Funès as a South American dictator, but in March 1975, the actor was hospitalised for heart problems and was forced to take a rest from acting. The Crocodile project was canceled.
After his recovery, Louis de Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, in a departure from his usual image. Zidi wrote for him L'aile ou la cuisse/The Wing and the Thigh (Claude Zidi, 1976), opposite Coluche as his son. He played a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, who is waging a war against a fast-food entrepreneur. It was a new character full of nuances and frankness and arguably the best of his roles. In 1980, De Funès realised a long-standing dream to make a film version of Molière's play, L'Avare/The Miser (Louis de Funès, Jean Girault, 1980). In 1982, De Funès made his final film, Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes/Never Play Clever Again (Tony Aboyantz, Jean Girault, 1982). Unlike the characters he played, de Funès was said to be a very shy person in real life. He became a knight of France's Légion d'honneur in 1973. He resided in the Château de Clermont, a 17th-century monument, located in the commune of Le Cellier, which is situated near Nantes in France. In his later years, he suffered from a heart condition after having suffered a heart attack caused by straining himself too much with his stage antics. Louis de Funès died of a massive stroke in 1983, a few months after making Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, the cemetery situated in the grounds of the château. Films de France: “Although fame was a long time coming, Louis de Funès is regarded today as not just a great comic actor with an unfaltering ability to make his audience laugh, but practically an institution in his own right. His many films bear testimony to the extent of his comic genius and demonstrate the tragedy that he never earned the international recognition that he certainly deserved.”
Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
French postcard in the 'Les geants du cinema' series, by Editions et Impression Combier, Mâcon (Cim), no. 2. Illustration: Jean-Pierre Gillot.
French actor of Spanish origin Louis de Funès (1914-1983) was one of the giants of French comedy alongside André Bourvil and Fernandel. In many of his over 130 films, he portrayed a humorously excitable, cranky man with a propensity to hyperactivity, bad faith, and uncontrolled fits of anger. Along with his short height (1.63 m) and his facial contortions, this hyperactivity produced a highly comic effect, especially opposite Bourvil, who always played calm, slightly naive, good-humored men.
Louis de Funès (French pronunciation: [lwi də fynɛs]) was born Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza in Courbevoie, France in 1914. His father, Carlos Luis de Funès de Galarza had been a lawyer in Seville, Spain, but became a diamond cutter upon arriving in France. His mother, Leonor Soto Reguera was of Spanish and Portuguese extraction. Since the couple's families opposed their marriage, they settled in France in 1904. Known to friends and intimates as ‘Fufu’, the young De Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing and spoke French, Spanish, and English well. He studied at the prestigious Lycée Condorcet in Paris. He showed a penchant for tomfoolery, something which caused him trouble at school and later made it hard for him to hold down a job. He became a pianist, working mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, the famous red-light district. There he made his customers laugh each time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. It proved to be a waste of time except for his meeting with actor Daniel Gélin, who would become a close friend. In 1936, he married Germaine Louise Elodie Carroyer with whom he had a son, Daniel (1937). In 1942, they divorced. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, Jeanne Barthelémy de Maupassant, a grandniece of the famous author Guy de Maupassant. They married in 1943 and remained together for forty years until De Funès' death in 1983. The pair had two sons: Patrick (1944) and Olivier (1947). Patrick became a doctor who practiced in Saint-Germain en Laye. Olivier was an actor for a while, known for the son roles in his father's films, including Le Grand Restaurant/The Big Restaurant (Jacques Besnard, 1966), Fantômas se déchaine/Fantomas Strikes Back (André Hunebelle, 1965) starring Jean Marais, Les Grandes Vacances/The Big Vacation (Jean Girault, 1967), and Hibernatus (Edouard Molinaro, 1969) with Claude Gensac as De Funès’ wife, a role she played in many of his films. Olivier later worked as an aviator for Air France Europe.
Through the early 1940s, Louis de Funès continued playing piano at clubs, thinking there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gélin encouraged him to overcome his fear of rejection. De Funès began his show business career in the theatre, where he enjoyed moderate success. At the age of 31, thanks to his contact with Daniel Gélin, he made his film debut with an uncredited bit part as a porter in La Tentation de Barbizon/The Temptation of Barbizon (1945, Jean Stelli) starring Simone Renant. For the next ten years, de Funès would appear in fifty films, but always in minor roles, usually as an extra, scarcely noticed by the audience. Sometimes he had a supporting part such as in the Fernandel comedy Boniface somnambule/The Sleepwalker (Maurice Labro, 1951) and the comedy-drama La vie d'un honnête homme/The Virtuous Scoundrel (Sacha Guitry, 1953) starring Michel Simon. In the meanwhile, he pursued a theatrical career. Even after he attained the status of a film star, he continued to play theatre. His stage career culminated in a magnificent performance in the play Oscar, a role which he would later reprise in the film version of 1967. During this period, De Funès developed a pattern of daily activities: in the morning he did dubbing for recognized artists such as Renato Rascel and the Italian comic Totò, during the afternoon he worked in film, and in the theater in the evening. A break came when he appeared as the black-market pork butcher Jambier (another small role) in the well-known WWII comedy, La Traversée de Paris/Four Bags Full (Claude Autant-Lara, 1956) starring Jean Gabin and Bourvil. In his next film, the mediocre comedy Comme un cheveu sur la soupe/Crazy in the Noodle (Maurice Régamey, 1957), De Funès finally played the leading role. More interesting was Ni vu, ni connu/Neither Seen Nor Recognized (Yves Robert, 1958). He achieved stardom with the comedy Pouic-Pouic (Jean Girault, 1963) opposite Mireille Darc. This successful film guaranteed De Funès top billing in all of his subsequent films.
Between 1964 and 1979, Louis de Funès topped France's box office of the year's most successful films seven times. At the age of 49, De Funès unexpectedly became a superstar with the international success of two films. Fantômas (André Hunebelle, 1964) was France's own answer to the James Bond frenzy and lead to a trilogy co-starring Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot. The second success was the crime comedy Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez/The Gendarme of St. Tropez (Jean Girault, 1964) with Michel Galabru. After their first successful collaboration on Pouic-Pouic, director Girault had perceived De Funès as the ideal actor to play the part of the accident-prone gendarme. The film led to a series of six 'Gendarme' films. De Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of de Funès with Bourvil, another great comic actor, in Le Corniaud/The Sucker (Gérard Oury, 1964). The successful partnership was repeated two years later in La Grande Vadrouille/Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At (Gérard Oury, 1966), one of the most successful and the largest grossing film ever made in France, drawing an audience of 17,27 million. It remains his greatest success. Oury envisaged a further reunion of the two comics in his historical comedy La Folie des grandeurs/Delusions of Grandeur (Gérard Oury, 1970), but Bourvil's death in 1970 led to the unlikely pairing of de Funès with Yves Montand in this film. Very successful, even in the USA, was Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Gérard Oury, 1973) with Suzy Delair. De Funès played a bigoted Frenchman who finds himself forced to impersonate a popular rabbi while on the run from a group of assassins. In 1975, Oury had scheduled to make Le Crocodile/The Crocodile with De Funès as a South American dictator, but in March 1975, the actor was hospitalised for heart problems and was forced to take a rest from acting. The Crocodile project was canceled.
After his recovery, Louis de Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, in a departure from his usual image. Zidi wrote for him L'aile ou la cuisse/The Wing and the Thigh (Claude Zidi, 1976), opposite Coluche as his son. He played a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, who is waging a war against a fast-food entrepreneur. It was a new character full of nuances and frankness and arguably the best of his roles. In 1980, De Funès realised a long-standing dream to make a film version of Molière's play, L'Avare/The Miser (Louis de Funès, Jean Girault, 1980). In 1982, De Funès made his final film, Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes/Never Play Clever Again (Tony Aboyantz, Jean Girault, 1982). Unlike the characters he played, de Funès was said to be a very shy person in real life. He became a knight of France's Légion d'honneur in 1973. He resided in the Château de Clermont, a 17th-century monument, located in the commune of Le Cellier, which is situated near Nantes in France. In his later years, he suffered from a heart condition after having suffered a heart attack caused by straining himself too much with his stage antics. Louis de Funès died of a massive stroke in 1983, a few months after making Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, the cemetery situated in the grounds of the château. Films de France: “Although fame was a long time coming, Louis de Funès is regarded today as not just a great comic actor with an unfaltering ability to make his audience laugh, but practically an institution in his own right. His many films bear testimony to the extent of his comic genius and demonstrate the tragedy that he never earned the international recognition that he certainly deserved.”
Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
French actor of Spanish origin Louis de Funès (1914-1983) was one of the giants of French comedy alongside André Bourvil and Fernandel. In many of his over 130 films, he portrayed a humorously excitable, cranky man with a propensity to hyperactivity, bad faith, and uncontrolled fits of anger. Along with his short height (1.63 m) and his facial contortions, this hyperactivity produced a highly comic effect, especially opposite Bourvil, who always played calm, slightly naive, good-humored men.
Louis de Funès (French pronunciation: [lwi də fynɛs]) was born Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza in Courbevoie, France in 1914. His father, Carlos Luis de Funès de Galarza had been a lawyer in Seville, Spain, but became a diamond cutter upon arriving in France. His mother, Leonor Soto Reguera was of Spanish and Portuguese extraction. Since the couple's families opposed their marriage, they settled in France in 1904. Known to friends and intimates as ‘Fufu’, the young De Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing and spoke French, Spanish, and English well. He studied at the prestigious Lycée Condorcet in Paris. He showed a penchant for tomfoolery, something which caused him trouble at school and later made it hard for him to hold down a job. He became a pianist, working mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, the famous red-light district. There he made his customers laugh each time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. It proved to be a waste of time except for his meeting with actor Daniel Gélin, who would become a close friend. In 1936, he married Germaine Louise Elodie Carroyer with whom he had a son, Daniel (1937). In 1942, they divorced. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, Jeanne Barthelémy de Maupassant, a grandniece of the famous author Guy de Maupassant. They married in 1943 and remained together for forty years until De Funès' death in 1983. The pair had two sons: Patrick (1944) and Olivier (1947). Patrick became a doctor who practiced in Saint-Germain en Laye. Olivier was an actor for a while, known for the son roles in his father's films, including Le Grand Restaurant/The Big Restaurant (Jacques Besnard, 1966), Fantômas se déchaine/Fantomas Strikes Back (André Hunebelle, 1965) starring Jean Marais, Les Grandes Vacances/The Big Vacation (Jean Girault, 1967), and Hibernatus (Edouard Molinaro, 1969) with Claude Gensac as De Funès’ wife, a role she played in many of his films. Olivier later worked as an aviator for Air France Europe.
Through the early 1940s, Louis de Funès continued playing piano at clubs, thinking there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gélin encouraged him to overcome his fear of rejection. De Funès began his show business career in the theatre, where he enjoyed moderate success. At the age of 31, thanks to his contact with Daniel Gélin, he made his film debut with an uncredited bit part as a porter in La Tentation de Barbizon/The Temptation of Barbizon (1945, Jean Stelli) starring Simone Renant. For the next ten years, de Funès would appear in fifty films, but always in minor roles, usually as an extra, scarcely noticed by the audience. Sometimes he had a supporting part such as in the Fernandel comedy Boniface somnambule/The Sleepwalker (Maurice Labro, 1951) and the comedy-drama La vie d'un honnête homme/The Virtuous Scoundrel (Sacha Guitry, 1953) starring Michel Simon. In the meanwhile, he pursued a theatrical career. Even after he attained the status of a film star, he continued to play theatre. His stage career culminated in a magnificent performance in the play Oscar, a role which he would later reprise in the film version of 1967. During this period, De Funès developed a pattern of daily activities: in the morning he did dubbing for recognized artists such as Renato Rascel and the Italian comic Totò, during the afternoon he worked in film, and in the theater in the evening. A break came when he appeared as the black-market pork butcher Jambier (another small role) in the well-known WWII comedy, La Traversée de Paris/Four Bags Full (Claude Autant-Lara, 1956) starring Jean Gabin and Bourvil. In his next film, the mediocre comedy Comme un cheveu sur la soupe/Crazy in the Noodle (Maurice Régamey, 1957), De Funès finally played the leading role. More interesting was Ni vu, ni connu/Neither Seen Nor Recognized (Yves Robert, 1958). He achieved stardom with the comedy Pouic-Pouic (Jean Girault, 1963) opposite Mireille Darc. This successful film guaranteed De Funès top billing in all of his subsequent films.
Between 1964 and 1979, Louis de Funès topped France's box office of the year's most successful films seven times. At the age of 49, De Funès unexpectedly became a superstar with the international success of two films. Fantômas (André Hunebelle, 1964) was France's own answer to the James Bond frenzy and lead to a trilogy co-starring Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot. The second success was the crime comedy Le gendarme de Saint-Tropez/The Gendarme of St. Tropez (Jean Girault, 1964) with Michel Galabru. After their first successful collaboration on Pouic-Pouic, director Girault had perceived De Funès as the ideal actor to play the part of the accident-prone gendarme. The film led to a series of six 'Gendarme' films. De Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of de Funès with Bourvil, another great comic actor, in Le Corniaud/The Sucker (Gérard Oury, 1964). The successful partnership was repeated two years later in La Grande Vadrouille/Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At (Gérard Oury, 1966), one of the most successful and the largest grossing film ever made in France, drawing an audience of 17,27 million. It remains his greatest success. Oury envisaged a further reunion of the two comics in his historical comedy La Folie des grandeurs/Delusions of Grandeur (Gérard Oury, 1970), but Bourvil's death in 1970 led to the unlikely pairing of de Funès with Yves Montand in this film. Very successful, even in the USA, was Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Gérard Oury, 1973) with Suzy Delair. De Funès played a bigoted Frenchman who finds himself forced to impersonate a popular rabbi while on the run from a group of assassins. In 1975, Oury had scheduled to make Le Crocodile/The Crocodile with De Funès as a South American dictator, but in March 1975, the actor was hospitalised for heart problems and was forced to take a rest from acting. The Crocodile project was canceled.
After his recovery, Louis de Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, in a departure from his usual image. Zidi wrote for him L'aile ou la cuisse/The Wing and the Thigh (Claude Zidi, 1976), opposite Coluche as his son. He played a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, who is waging a war against a fast-food entrepreneur. It was a new character full of nuances and frankness and arguably the best of his roles. In 1980, De Funès realised a long-standing dream to make a film version of Molière's play, L'Avare/The Miser (Louis de Funès, Jean Girault, 1980). In 1982, De Funès made his final film, Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes/Never Play Clever Again (Tony Aboyantz, Jean Girault, 1982). Unlike the characters he played, de Funès was said to be a very shy person in real life. He became a knight of France's Légion d'honneur in 1973. He resided in the Château de Clermont, a 17th-century monument, located in the commune of Le Cellier, which is situated near Nantes in France. In his later years, he suffered from a heart condition after having suffered a heart attack caused by straining himself too much with his stage antics. Louis de Funès died of a massive stroke in 1983, a few months after making Le Gendarme et les gendarmettes. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, the cemetery situated in the grounds of the château. Films de France: “Although fame was a long time coming, Louis de Funès is regarded today as not just a great comic actor with an unfaltering ability to make his audience laugh, but practically an institution in his own right. His many films bear testimony to the extent of his comic genius and demonstrate the tragedy that he never earned the international recognition that he certainly deserved.”
Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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