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Sacha Pitoëff

Actor, Director
Born March 11, 1920Died July 21, 1990 (70 years)
Sacha Pitoëff (born Alexandre Pitoëff; 11 March 1920 – 21 July 1990) was a Swiss-born French actor and stage director.

Pitoëff was born in Geneva, Switzerland, on 11 March 1920, the son of Russian-born parents Ludmilla (née Smanova) and Georges Pitoëff. Both of his parents were born in the city of Tbilisi (in modern-day Georgia), then a part of the Russian Empire. The Pitoëffs were prominent actors in France, Georges was a founding member of the Cartel des Quatre (Group of Four), a group including Louis Jouvet, Charles Dullin, and Gaston Baty, dedicated to rejuvenating the French theatre.

Sacha graduated from Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly-sur-Seine, outside Paris. He studied acting and stage direction under Jouvet at the Théâtre de l'Athénée.

During World War II, the younger Pitoëff followed his mother back to Switzerland, where he played his earliest roles. After the war he returned to Paris, becoming general manager at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. He made his directorial debut with a 1950 staging of Uncle Vanya, which proved both a critical and commercial success.

He became a fixture of Parisian theatre in the 1960s, becoming the director of his own troupe. His repertoire included works by Jean Genet, Eugène Ionesco, Hugo Claus, Robert Musil, Anna Langfus and Anton Chekhov. With Romy Schneider, he staged The Seagull, Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters at Théâtre de l'Œuvre.

In 1967, he achieved his greatest success with a well-regarded production of Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV, which he directed and starred in, with Claude Jade.

Pitoëff played his first film role in 1952, in the omnibus film The Seven Deadly Sins. Appearing in over 50 films, he is probably best known for his performance in Alain Resnais's enigmatic Last Year at Marienbad (1960), as the unnamed man who may or may not be Delphine Seyrig's husband.

He was featured in roles of various sizes in such films as Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Espions (1957), Peter Ustinov's Lady L (1965), René Clément's Is Paris Burning? (1966), and Jacques Demy's Donkey Skin (1970). He also appeared in several Hollywood productions, including Anatole Litvak's Anastasia (1956) and The Night of the Generals (1967), Mark Robson's The Prize (1963) and Dick Clement's To Catch a Spy (1971).

Toward the end of his acting career, he began appearing in horror films. His final role was as the bookseller Kazanian in Dario Argento's Inferno (1980).

For the last ten years of his life, Pitoëff was a professor at the National School of Theatre Arts and Techniques (ENSATT) in Lyon, where his students included Gérard Depardieu, Jean-Roger Milo and Niels Arestrup.

Pitoëff was married to French actress Luce Garcia-Ville, until her death by suicide in 1975. He had two siblings, actress Svetlana Pitoëff and writer Aniouta Pitoeff.

His height and distinctively-gaunt, lanky appearance may have been a consequence of Marfan syndrome.

Having suffered from depression in the final years of his life, he died in Paris at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital on 21 July 1990, at the age of 70.

Source: Article "Sacha Pitoëff" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Movies & Shows on Plex
  • Sherlock Holmes (1954)
Known For
  • Last Year at Marienbad
  • Inferno
  • Patrick Still Lives
  • Donkey Skin
  • The New Avengers
  • The Prize
  • Captain Fracasse
  • Catch Me a Spy
  • The Immoral Moment
  • Le joueur
  • La poupée
  • The Bloody Doll

Filmography

1980
Patrick Still Lives · as Dr. Herschell
1980
Inferno · as Kazanian
1978
Dossier 51 · as Minerve 1 (voix)
1976
1976
The New Avengers (TV Series)
1976
The Bloody Doll (TV Series) · as Doctor Sahib Khan
1974
Les grands détectives (TV Series) · as Arkabad
1972
1972
Diary of a Suicide · as Le Geôlier
1971
Schulmeister (TV Series) · as Dangberg
1971
Catch Me a Spy · as Stefan
1971
Graf Luckner (TV Series) · as Doktor Morgan
1971
Arsène Lupin (TV Series) · as Ignateff
1970
Lancelot of the Lake · as L'ennemi (voice)
1970
Donkey Skin · as Le Premier Ministre
1969
La cravache d'or (TV Series) · as Cast
1969
The Pleasure Pit · as Head Of The Organization
1968
Spray of the Days · as Pharmacist
1968
1967
Lagardère · as Philippe De Gonzague
1967
Le système Fabrizzi · as Antonio Fabrizzi
1967
Lagardère (TV Series) · as Le Prince Gonzague
1967
Count Yoster does the honors (TV Series) · as Prof. Ourbiche
1967
1966
Is Paris Burning? · as Joliot-Curie
1966
At the Theater Tonight (TV Series) · as Antonio Fabrizzi
1965
Lady L · as Bomb-Throwing Revolutionary
1963
The Prize · as Dranyi
1962
Good Night Little Ones (TV Series) · as Dada (voice)
1962
1962
The Immoral Moment · as Malferrer
1961
1961
Last Year at Marienbad · as M – The Other Man With The Lean Face, The Husband
1961
Captain Fracasse · as Matamore
1958
Le joueur · as Afpley
1958
That Night · as Shakespearean Man (uncredited)
1958
A Tale of Two Cities · as Gaspard
1957
The Spies · as Leon
1957
La polka des menottes · as Eugène - Le Clochard
1956
Anastasia · as Piotr Ivanovich Petrovin
1955
Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion (TV Series) · as Bartender
1954
Disneyland (TV Series) · as Sergeant
1954
1954
Raspoutine · as Le Chef De La Police
1952
The Seven Deadly Sins · as The Pianist (segment "pride") (uncredited)

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