Francis Blanche

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.

Known For: Acting

Born: Paris, France, 1921-07-20

Died: 1974-07-06

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1942	Frédérica	Ami de Gilbert	40
2	1948	The Killer is Listening	Self	10
3	1950	The Sad Sack	Jean du Bois d'Ombelles	0
4	1950	Ils ont vingt ans	Michel Barbarin	0
5	1951	Good Enough to Eat	Gilles	68
6	1953	Midnight... Quai de Bercy	M. Boulay, l'épicier libidineux	65
7	1954	Trust Me!	Nicolas	54
8	1954	Peek-a-boo	Garibaldo Trouchet, le ténor / Un musicien	50
9	1956	Life is beautiful	un voisin	45
10	1956	Honoré de Marseille	Pasquale Marchetti	57
11	1957	La Polka des menottes	un voisin	68
12	1957	Anyone Can Kill Me	La Bonbonne	59
13	1958	A Dog, A Mouse and a Sputnik	Chazot	40
14	1958	The Little Professor	General overseer	31
15	1958	Toto in Paris	Il maggiordomo (uncredited)	62
16	1959	The Motorcycle Cops	His Excellency Curacagua	50
17	1959	The Indestructible	Francis Blanchard	50
18	1959	Too Late to Love	Camille, le patron du bistrot	56
19	1959	Babette Goes to War	Schulz	55
20	1959	The Green Mare	Ferdinand Haudouin	56
21	1959	Match contre la mort	Mr. Pascal	0
22	1960	Some Like It... Cold	William Foster Valmorin, American	55
23	1960	Long Live the Duke!		0
24	1960	Easy Come Easy Go	Félix	40
25	1960	Le pillole di Ercole	Augusto	0
26	1960	Love and the Frenchwoman	Me Marcerou, avocat et ami du couple (segment "Le Divorce")	49
27	1960	We Like It Cold	von Krussendorf	65
28	1960	Le Olimpiadi dei mariti		73
29	1960	Little Girls and High Finance		65
30	1960	The Bear	Chappuis	60
31	1961	Long Live Henry IV... Long Live Love!	Prior	52
32	1961	Les Livreurs	Félix	0
33	1961	House of Sin	Blanchin	40
34	1961	The Girl of a Thousand Months	Commendator Borgioli	20
35	1961	Romulus and the Sabines	Mezio	50
36	1962	Operation Gold Ingot	Fellous	0
37	1962	Hitch-Hike	le douanier belge	55
38	1962	The Vendetta	Bartoli	54
39	1962	The Seventh Juror	Attorney General	69
40	1962	Accroche-toi, y'a du vent!	Capitano Fornace	0
41	1962	Snobs!	Morloch	57
42	1962	The Hideout	Edouard	0
43	1962	Tartarin de Tarascon	Antoine Tartarin	48
44	1963	Who Stole the Body?	Édouard	65
45	1963	The Abominable Man of Customs	Arnakos	50
46	1963	People in Luck	M. Bricheton (« Le Repas gastronomique »)	57
47	1963	The Virgins	Mr. de Brétevielle	46
48	1963	Thank Heaven for Small Favors	Chief Insp. Cucherat	66
49	1963	Sweet and Sour	Franz	46
50	1963	Crooks in Clover	Maître Folace	77
51	1963	Les gros bras	Mr. Pédro Andromèze	38
52	1964	The Black Tulip	Plantin	63
53	1964	Actualités télérévisées	Presenter	0
54	1964	Dandelions by the Roots	Absalon	56
55	1964	Jaloux comme un tigre	le chauffeur	20
56	1964	Requiem pour un caïd	Émile aka 'le Boxeur'	58
57	1964	Clémentine chérie	Nuisance at the Miss ceremony (uncredited)	60
58	1964	The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers	Mr. Humlaupt (segment "L'Homme qui vendit la tour Eiffel")	53
59	1964	Champagne for Savages	Francis	60
60	1964	Male Hunt	Nino Papatakis	66
61	1964	Les pieds nickelés	Commissaire Lenoir	58
62	1964	The Big Scare		59
63	1964	Chance at Love	Adjutant (segment "Chance du guerrier, La")	58
64	1964	The Great Spy Chase	Boris Vassiliev	68
65	1964	Les Gorilles	Félix	55
66	1965	Les baratineurs	Louis Dujardin	40
67	1965	The Real Bargain	Paul Souflé	10
68	1965	Pas de caviar pour tante Olga	Dufour	0
69	1965	Under Your Hat	Mario l'enchanteur	36
70	1966	The Sleeping Sentinel	Constant	47
71	1966	Les malabars sont au parfum	Ivanov	33
72	1966	Les enquiquineurs	Monsieur Achille Eloy	30
73	1967	The Men in the Family	Strumberger	52
74	1967	The Big Grasshopper	Gédéon	62
75	1967	Order of the Daisy	L'inspecteur Maurice Leloup	63
76	1967	Deux Romains en Gaule	Le druide inventeur de la potion d'invisibilité	65
77	1967	The Oldest Profession	The Doctor (segment "Aujourd'hui")	50
78	1967	Le canard en fer blanc	Le docteur Grego	38
79	1967	Belle de Jour	Mr. Adolphe	73
80	1967	The Great Gadget	Copec	32
81	1967	Du mou dans la gâchette	La Prudence	56
82	1967	Rita the Field Marshal	Captain Hans Vogel	52
83	1968	Salut Berthe !	Passerby with the pipe (uncredited)	44
84	1968	The Big Wash	Doctor Loupioc	60
85	1969	Faites donc plaisir aux amis	Maximiliano	45
86	1969	Les gros malins	Francis Bertolde aka 'Le book'	10
87	1969	Le bourgeois gentil mec	Spinosa	10
88	1969	Erotissimo	Le polyvalent	59
89	1969	Aux frais de la princesse	Achille	10
90	1969	Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille	Loïc de Kerfuntel	30
91	1969	Poussez pas grand-père dans les cactus	Alphonse Ramier / Al Gregor	35
92	1970	The Stud	Tax collector Dupuis	49
93	1970	Adieu Berthe	Léo Bertold	0
94	1970	Ces messieurs de la gâchette	Marco Lombardi	33
95	1970	Alice au pays des merveilles	King of hearts	57
96	1971	The Great Java	Auguste Kougloff / Augustin Colombani	59
97	1971	Are You Engaged to a Greek Sailor or an Airline Pilot?	Maurice Gombaud	37
98	1971	Les Jambes en l'air	Hugon	40
99	1971	Qu'est-ce qui fait courir les crocodiles ?	Hector Grogenol	40
100	1971	Il furto è l'anima del commercio!?...	Sigfrid	40
101	1971	La Grande Maffia	Modeste Miette	30
102	1972	Scandal Man	Paluche	40
103	1972	The Eroticist	padre Scirer	57
104	1972	The Terror with Cross-Eyes	Commissioner Pigna	0
105	1973	I've Had It	Mr. de Chatiez	50
106	1973	I. You. They.	Darbon, le galeriste	40
107	1973	Racconti romani di una ex-novizia	Pietro l'Aretino	20
108	1973	The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot	Wanderer	51
109	1973	Le Solitaire	Norbert	53
110	1973	La Dernière Bourrée à Paris	Gaston Payrac	10
111	1974	Par le sang des autres	Doctor	50
112	1974	OK Patron	Victor Hutin, Sophie's father	50
113	1974	France, Incorporated	Pierre, the perverted financier	41
114	1974	Say it with Flowers		40
115	1974	No Pockets in a Shroud	Nathaël Grissom	54
116	1975	A Whale That Had a Toothache	Francis	50
117	2009	Comiques de toujours (Vol. 1 à 4)	Self (archive footage)	0
118	2020	Pierre Dac et Francis Blanche : Le Meilleur du Parti d'en Rire	Lui-même	0
119	2022	Les 100 vies de Francis Blanche	Self (archive footage)	0

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1956	Cinépanorama	Self	80
2	1959	Discorama	Self	0
3	1965	Le Bonheur Conjugal	Le patron du restaurant	0
4	1968	À bout portant	Self	80
5	1971	Samedi soir	Self	60
6	1972	Midi trente	Self	60

Francis Blanche

Film

Television