Gérard Oury
Born
29 April 1919 (106)
Place of Birth
Paris, France
Also known as
Max-Gérard Houry Tannenbaum, Gerard Oury
Biography
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 Je...
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.
Filmography (40)
Les Rois de la comédie
2023
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
2022
À la recherche de... Pierre Richard
2017
Sur la route de la grande vadrouille
2016
Louis de Funès, l'homme qui a passé le mur du son
2013
La Folle Heure des grandis
2002
Le Schpountz
1999
Ghost with Driver
1996
The Thirst for Gold
1993
Vanille fraise
1989
Levy & Goliath
1987
A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later
1986
The Vengeance of the Winged Serpent
1984
Ace of Aces
1982
Umbrella Coup
1980
Out of It
1978
The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob
1973
Delusions of Grandeur
1971
The Brain
1969
Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!
1966
The Sucker
1965
The Prize
1963
Crime Does Not Pay
1962
The Menace
1961
The Itchy Palm
1960
The Four of Moana
1959
The Journey
1959
The Mirror Has Two Faces
1958
Back to the Wall
1958
Seventh Heaven
1958
Young Girls Beware
1957
The Marines
1957
House of Secrets
1956
L'homme au parapluie
1956
The Best Part
1955
Heroes and Sinners
1955
Woman of the River
1954
Loves of Three Queens
1954
The Fate of Two Queens
1954
Father Brown
1954