Louis de Funès: 5 things to know about this absolute icon of comedy

Chestnut tree watered to the hilt for decades by the TV channels, a veritable martingale for generous audiences when they regularly have a soft stomach in their program schedules, it is an understatement to say that Louis de Funès is an ultra safe bet for television.

There are countless reruns of his films, between the saga of the Fantômas and the Gendarme of Saint Tropez, Le Corniaud, La Folie des grandeurs, The Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, The wing or the thigh, without forgetting of course the absolute classic, La Grande Vadrouille. A systematic audience card at each of its broadcasts. France 2 remembers its good memories since the channel precisely broadcasts the film this April 17 …

And if you still had some vague doubts about the regenerating and reassuring power of Louis de Funès on the public, we will remember this. In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, between March and April, TV channels blocked most of his films for an audience condemned to stay confined to their homes.

The result ? A hold up: 50 million spectators gathered in front of his films during the first confinement, with a record for Megalomaniabroadcast on April 12, 2020 on France 2, in front of 5.3 million spectators. The big mop ? 5.1 million. Rabbi Jacob ? 4.1 million!

“The misfortunes, people find them soon enough. Laughter, we will always need it!” said Louis de Funès. Words full of wisdom… Here are five anecdotes about this absolute icon of French comedy.

Worry and fear of tomorrow

Debuting at the cinema in 1945 at the late age of 31, the actor did not know the consecration until 1964, at the age of 50, with the first part of the saga of Constable of Saint Tropez. The five sequels, the three Fantômas, the four films with Gérard Oury put De Funès at the top of the box office for a good while. The public loves his grimaces, his elastic face, his facial expressions and his gestures. From his difficult beginnings and this very late breakthrough, Louis De Funès will however remain very worried about the next day, which will push him to take only a minimum of risks.

He was also certainly traumatized by the ruin of his father, who nevertheless faked suicide to escape bankruptcy. Louis de Funès will also hide a chest filled with gold bars in the garden of his castle in Clermont. In “Louis de Funès from A to Z”, Bertrand Dicale says that in 1968, on the set of Gendarme gets married, de Funès was worried: discontent was rising in the capital. He then instructed director Jean Girault to dig up his ingots. One would almost believe de Funès still under the influence of Don Sallust in Megalomania…

He was a jazz pianist

Having become famous late in life, Louis de Funès did not always make a living from his acting profession. Between two plays, he was notably a bar pianist. Initiated by his mother from an early age in this discipline, he had begun his career in cabarets, under the Occupation. he will thus recount in an interview his grueling nights at the “Club de Paris”, where he could play 12 hours in a row: “At 5:30 a.m. when I woke up, I felt like I was Erich Von Stroheim in The Great Illusion. I was cemented in the shape of the stool.”

Here is an overview of his talent, in the film Like a hair on the soup, released in 1957:

He advocated organic farming well before his time

Far from the hustle and bustle of the film sets, Louis de Funès loved nothing more than to return home, to walk the paths of the park of his castle, and above all to devote himself to what was a passion for him. : gardening, from an early age moreover, around 5-6 years. A simple and modest pleasure, in which he enjoyed the harmony of nature and calm. His (large!) vegetable garden was an immense source of pride for him, to the point that he even accepted – even though he was very modest – a journalist’s camera at home to discuss this passion.

We must review this wonderful video of the INA, excerpt from the show Life in Greenbroadcast on May 26, 1979. “I eat everything I grow! There are no chemicals in my garden! I make my own manure, with straw and seaweed” he says, contemplating his production.

Admirable words full of wisdom, especially if we remember that at that time he was against the grain of the discourse around agriculture, which used massive amounts of chemical fertilizers to drastically increase yields, with the ravages that we now know…

He almost played Hitler’s half-brother

The career of Louis de Funès could have been enriched a little more by numerous film projects in the 60s and 70s, which did not materialize. Between a Ghosts in Moscowa film with the Charlots entitled Thanks boss ! chaperoned by then-star producer Christian Fechner; a failed reunion in 1977 with Georges Lautner with whom he had filmed Des dandelions by the root in 1964; or even a Louis de Funès in the uniform of a dictator responsible for a series of false attacks against himself in The crocodile, which Gérard Oury was to direct, the list is long. We used to give it here.

Among these aborted projects was his participation in the cult film, Papy fait de la Résistance, with the Splendid team. The actor had seen the play written by Christian Clavier and Martin Lamotte, and wanted to be part of its film adaptation. The current had passed very well with Jugnot, Clavier, Lhermitte and the other members of the troop when he met them.

First there was talk of him playing Grandpa, then a World War I veteran living in a cabin. But it was ultimately to slip into the skin of Adolf Hitler’s half-brother that he was chosen. Died of a heart attack on January 27, 1983, at the age of 68, de Funès never materialized his participation. It was Jacques Villeret who inherited his character, while the role of Grandpa fell through the hands of his old accomplice, Michel Galabru. The film is also dedicated to de Funès.

Sometimes very tense relations with its partners

King of comedy, Louis de Funès nevertheless had complicated, sometimes even very tense, relations with his playing partners. The first of them was Jean Marais on the Fantômas, the latter resenting the fact that comedy steals the show. Another saga: De Funès clashed with Jean Lefebvre during the filming of Les Gendarme, notably on Le Gendarme en promenade (which was the last Gendarme for Lefebvre).

Let us cite his complicated encounters with other great actors, each seeking to pull the cover for himself. This was the case with Fernandel for Le Mouton à cinq pattes, or with Jean Gabin on Le Tatoué. While he had the upper hand over his partner in La Traversée de Paris (1956) and Le Gentleman d’Epsom (1962), Jean Gabin this time had to compose as equals with Louis de Funès. This reunion at the top between two sacred monsters will quickly turn into a quarrel of egos, with very many modifications to the film script required by the two actors.

“They are two actors with absolutely different styles”, said at the time on the set Denys de la Patellière, the director of the film. “It’s the charm and the difficulty of this meeting: their acting technique is different. Jean Gabin is used to playing very precise things, very planned in advance, with a technical breakdown that he has seen and knows well. very well, with reactions on specific words.”

And to add: “De Funès is spontaneity itself, and finds things while playing and even from one take on the other. When we start the scenes again, he finds new things, and it is important not to hinder him in his findings, how important it is that Gabin also finds his way of acting.”