Test yourself on the names of characters from Louis de Funès’ films, from the most famous to the slightly more devious!
Louis de Funès is one of the favorite comedians of the French, probably for you too if you clicked on this article. The actor was the specialist in rather extravagant character names, those that are difficult to come across in real life, but do you know them all? It’s time to test yourself!
With more than 250 million admissions to his credit (whether he was a headliner or not), Louis de Funès was one of the pillars of the French box office from 1964 to 1982, the date of his death. Whether through the Gendarme saga, that of Fantômas, Oscar, Jo, Les Grandes vacances or even his films with Gérard Oury such as La Grande vadrouille, Le Corniaud or La Folie des grandeurs, the comic has marked generations of (television) spectators.
Louis de Funès started as a bar pianist before doing extra work for almost five years, before appearing for 15 years in roles ranging from small to tiny, playing doormen, lawyers, cooks, sometimes roles silent and sometimes several roles in the same feature film, as is the case in Bernard de Latour’s little-known Du Guesclin.
Notoriety arrived for De Funès in 1961 with the triumph at the theater ofOscar then two years later with the theatrical success of Pouic-Pouic, which totaled 2 million admissions. From 1964, De Funès is everywhere with five films to his credit: Break the Bank!, Dandelions by the Root, A Mouse Among Men (also known as A Funny Caïd), The Gendarme of Saint-Tropez and Fantômas.
He then became the safe bet of French comic cinema, and continued filming until 1973, when he began to slow down his activities because of health problems. He will still exercise his profession until 1982, date of his death, not without having realized one of his dreams: to play in an adaptation of The Miser.