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GÉRARD PHILIPE (Fanfan)
“Philipe was a special, unique actor. He was the most admired and loved French star of his generation. As a classical actor in Racine and Corneille, Paris audiences marveled, and as a movie star, an international name on the art circuit, he was the chief favorite of post-war moviegoers.”
– David Shipman, The Great Movie Stars
The embodiment of youth and romantic high spirits for an entire post-war generation, Gérard Philipe was born in Cannes in 1922, the son of a hotel manager. He discovered the theater during the early years of the German Occupation and quickly came to the attention of director Marc Allégret, a filmmaker known for his flair in finding young talent, who encouraged him to take acting courses. After appearing in a play, he made his screen debut in 1943, first with a walk-on, then in a small role in Allégret’s Les Petites du Quai aux fleurs. Admitted to the Conservatoire, he took part in the liberation of Paris (unlike his pro-fascist father, who fled to Spain to escape trial for collaborationist activities).
In the heady environment of post-war Paris, Philipe’s career quickly found its twin-track course in film and theater. Shooting by day and appearing on stage by night, the 23-year-old actor triumphed simultaneously in the title roles of Georges Lampin’s film of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and Albert Camus’s play Caligula. International consecration came the following year in Claude Autant-Lara’s controversial Devil in the Flesh (1947), for which he was voted Best Actor at the 1947 Festival Mondial du Film et des Beaux Arts. Hollywood began to court him at this time, always in vain.
After starring as the Stendahlian hero in Christian-Jaque’s three-hour adaptation of The Charterhouse of Parma, Philipe played one of his favorite roles: a suicide-bent young fugitive, in Yves Allégret’s still underrated noir masterpiece, Une si jolie petite plage (1949).
Philipe’s meetings with filmmaker René Clair and stage director Jean Vilar ushered in a new period in his career. With Clair, Philipe played Faust in La Beauté du diable (1950), the daydreaming young hero of Les Belles de nuit (1952) and a provincial garrison Don Juan in Les Grandes Manoeuvres (1955). On stage, Philipe thrilled audiences as the quintessential romantic hero in Corneille’s Le Cid, Kleist’s The Prince of Homburg and Musset’s Lorenzaccio.
In addition to Fanfan la Tulipe, Philipe’s other major films in the first half of the decade included Marcel Carné’s Juliette ou la clef des songes (1950), Max Ophüls’ La Ronde (1950), Yves Allégret’s Les Orgueuilleux (1953), opposite Michèle Morgan, René Clément’s Monsieur Ripois/Knave of Hearts (1954), shot in English and French on location in London, Claude Autant-Lara’s The Red and the Black (1954) and Yves Allégret’s La Meilleur part (1955).
With the exception of Julien Duvivier’s late masterpiece, Pot-bouille (1957), his last films were mediocre: he made an unsuccessful directing debut with The Adventures of Till Eulenspiegel (1956, co-directed with Joris Ivens), was miscast in Jacques Becker’s biopic of Modigliani, Montparnasse 19 (1957), and co-starred with Jeanne Moreau in Roger Vadim’s unconvincing modern-dress adaptation of Les Liaisons dangereuses (1959). Philipe was already seriously ill with liver cancer when he appeared in Buñuel’s La Fièvre monte à El Pao. He died on November 25, 1959, the eve of his 37th birthday.
Following his death, tributes poured in (and he was honored with a French postage stamp – one of the first two actors to be so-honored). Said actor Serge Reggiani: “He was the only one who was both honest and reliable, despite his talent and success. For us of his generation he was a confirmation. We each have a certain number of qualities; he had them all.”
Critic Georges Sadoul wrote that geniuses like Philipe express “the deeper currents of an era. Philipe is a reflection of our country and our time: the post-war era.”
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