French actor Henri Serre has died at the age of 92. He will remain the eternal interpreter of Jim from “Jules et Jim” by François Truffaut.
Henri Serre died on October 9 at the age of 92, announced today The Midday Dispatch. He was Jim, one of the main protagonists of Jules et Jim by François Truffaut. He began his career in the cinema as an extra in Women of Paris by Jean Boyer, in 1953. Nearly ten years later, he was chosen by François Truffaut to play Jim, the lover of Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) in Jules and Jim.
Having become a face of the New Wave with this film, he played a series of roles opposite Romy Schneider in the thriller Le Combat dans l’île by Alain Cavalier, then appeared in Le Feu fout by Louis Malle, where he found himself again in the credits with Jeanne Moreau. He went to Italy to shoot two films and returned to France to star in short films by Serge Korber, René Allio and Anne Dastrée.
MK2 In “Jules and Jim”
Also present on stage, Serre appears less and less on screen. Let us cite a supporting role (as a secretary) in Fantômas contre Scotland Yard (1966), La Main with Nathalie Delon and Michel Duchaussoy (1969) or La Vie Facile by Francis Warrin (1971).
In the 1970s, he was found more on the small screen than on the big screen, but we saw him play supporting or even third roles, except in A Night Dreamed for a Common Fish by Bernard Guillou (1980). He plays in turn a priest in De guerre lasse by Robert Enrico, a king in The satin shoe by Manoel de Oliveira (1985) or the governor of Launay in The French Revolution (1989), in the segment also directed by Enrico.
In 1995, he appeared one last time in two episodes of the series Belle Époque, based on an idea by François Truffaut and with Jeanne Moreau as narrator, a coincidence which serves as a symbol, since for Henri Serre, it is with Truffaut and Moreau that it had all started.