Gérard Oury

Gérard Oury (29 April 1919, Paris – 20 July 2006, Saint-Tropez) was a French film director, actor and writer. His real name was Max-Gérard Houry Tannenbaum.

A commercially successful French filmmaker

The son of Serge Tannenbaum, a violinist, and Marcelle Houry, a journalist, Oury studied at Lycée Janson de Sailly and at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art. He became a member of the Comédie-Française, just one year before World War II, but fled to Switzerland to escape the anti-Jewish laws decreed by the Vichy government.

After 1945, he re-started his career as an actor, playing at theatre and in second-role in cinema. He 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).

Joining Bourvil and Louis de Funès as a comic duo, he burst into commercial filmmaking with The Sucker (Le corniaud), followed three years after by Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At (La Grande Vadrouille), drawing the largest audiences ever in France, only later surpassed by Titanic from James Cameron.

Living together with the French actress Michèle Morgan, he was the father of French writer Danièle Thompson and grandfather of actor/writer Christopher Thompson. He died aged 87 in Saint-Tropez on 20 July 2006.^[1]

Filmography as director

• Le Schpountz (1999)
• Fantôme avec chauffeur (1996)
• The Thirst for Gold (1993)
• Vanille fraise (1989)
• Levy and Goliath (1987)
• La Vengeance du serpent à plumes (The Vengeance of the Winged Serpent) (1984)
• L'as des as (The Ace of Aces aka. The Super Ace) (1982)
• Le Coup du parapluie (The Umbrella Coup) (1980)
• Out of It (1978)
• Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob (The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob) (1973)
• La Folie des grandeurs (Delusions of Grandeur) (1971)
• Le Cerveau (The Brain) (1969)
• La Grande Vadrouille (Don't Look Now - We're Being Shot At (1966)
• Le Corniaud (The Sucker) (1965)
• Le Crime ne paie pas (Crime Does Not Pay) (1962)
• The Itchy Palm (1960)
• The Menace (1960)

References

External links

• Gérard Oury at the Internet Movie Database