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Photo of Gérard Oury

Gérard Oury

Writer, Director, Actor, Additional Credits
Born April 29, 1919Died July 19, 2006 (87 years)
Gérard Oury (born Max-Gérard Houry Tannenbaum; 29 April 1919 – 20 July 2006) was a French film director, actor and writer. He is best known for a number of comedies he directed and co-wrote between the 1960s and 1980s, most notably The Sucker (1965), Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (1966), The Brain (1969), The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973), and Ace of Aces (1982).

Max-Gérard Houry-Tannenbaum was the only son of Serge Tannenbaum, a violinist of Russian-Jewish origin, and French Jewish Marcelle Houry, a journalist and art critic. Tannenbaum was absent from the life of Oury and he was raised in an unobservant house of his mother and maternal grandmother Berthe Goldner. 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 Jacqueline Roman) 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.

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 (The Itchy Palm) 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. 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.

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.

Source: Article "Gérard Oury" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.

Movies & Shows on Plex

  • The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob

Known For

  • Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!
  • The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob
  • The Mirror Has Two Faces
  • The Sucker
  • Delusions of Grandeur
  • The Brain
  • Ace of Aces
  • The Umbrella Coup
  • The Escape
  • Thirst for Gold
  • The Prize
  • La vengeance du serpent à plumes
  • Fantôme avec chauffeur
  • Lévy et Goliath
  • Back to the Wall
  • Vanille fraise
  • Come Dance with Me!
  • Witness in the City
  • The Detective
  • Le schpountz
  • Mr. Peek-a-Boo
  • Crime Does Not Pay
  • The River Girl
  • They Who Dare

Gérard Oury Filmography

2007
Louis de Funès intime · as Le Dauphin
2003
Above the Clouds · as Le Général De La Motte-Noire
1986
A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later · as Un Spectateur De '40 Ans Déjà'
1963
The Prize · as Claude Marceau
1961
La menace · as The Doctor
1960
The Itchy Palm · as Cameo Appearance (uncredited)
1959
The Journey · as Teklel Hafouli
1958
The Mirror Has Two Faces · as Docteur Bosc
1958
Back to the Wall · as Jacques Decrey
1958
Seventh Heaven · as Maurice Portal
1957
Young Girls Beware · as Marcel Palmer
1957
Les marines · as Récitant (voice)
1956
Triple Deception · as Julius Pindar
1955
The Best Part · as Gérard Bailly
1955
Heroes and Sinners · as Villeterre
1954
The River Girl · as Enzo Cinti
1954
Loves of Three Queens · as Napoleon Bonaparte (segment: Napoleon And Josephine)
1954
The Detective · as Inspector Dubois
1954
They Who Dare · as Captain George Two
1953
1953
The Sword and the Rose · as Dauphin Of France
1953
Sea Devils · as Napoleon
1951
The Night Is My Kingdom · as Lionel Moreau
1951
Mr. Peek-a-Boo · as Maurice
1951
Without Leaving an Address · as Un Journaliste
1950
Here Is the Beauty · as Bruno
1949
Du Guesclin · as Le Dauphin
1949
The Secret of Mayerling · as (uncredited)
1947
Antoine & Antoinette · as Le Client Galant
1941
Little Nothings · as Philinte

2022
2020
2018
2016
Sur la route de la grande vadrouille · as Self (archive Footage)
2013
2003
1998
Roll on Sunday (TV Series) · as Self
1994
Les enfants de la télé (TV Series) · as Self
1987
NPA (TV Series) · as Self
1982
Champs-Elysees (TV Series) · as Self
1976
César Awards (TV Series) · as Self
1975
Apostrophes (TV Series) · as Self
1956
Cinépanorama (TV Series) · as Self
1952
Reflets de Cannes (TV Series) · as Self

1996
The Mirror Has Two Faces · as Original Story
1978
1962
Crime Does Not Pay · as Scenario Writer
1959

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