Producer and associate of Jean-Paul Belmondo, promoter of Bruce Lee in France and famous cinema and video distributor of horror films banned by censorship in France, René Chateau died at the age of 84.
The panther which adorned the covers of his VHS tapes, and appearing in the pre-credits of his immense catalog of films, was famous. Independent French producer, screenwriter and video editor, René Chateau died at the age of 84 in Saint-Tropez at the beginning of last week, according to information reported by the daily Var-Matin.
Nicknamed the “Memory of French cinema”associate of Jean-Paul Belmondo in his production company Cerito Films, he was also the promoter of Bruce Lee and the cinema and video distributor of horror films banned by the censors in France at the end of the 1970s, including the most famous of them all, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Born July 3, 1939 in Le Mans, René Chateau worked very early. He left school at the age of 14 after obtaining his school certificate, then became a tiler-mason for a time. Already passionate about cinema, he toured the neighborhood theaters of Pré-Saint-Gervais, Montreuil-sous-Bois, Vincennes and Porte des Lilas, then later the Cinémathèque on rue d’Ulm, all the cinemas Parisian clubs and cinemas in Pigalle and the Latin Quarter.
Associate of Jean-Paul Belmondo
Founder in 1960 of a cinema magazine called The methodin homage to the Actors Studio, he was hired in 1964 within the magazine Him to hold the cinema section. A position which allowed him to interview numerous celebrities of the time, such as Jean-Paul Belmondo, whom he met on the set of Pierrot le fou by Jean-Luc Godard, in 1965.
Two years later, their relationship will be even more important. René Chateau will in fact be his press attaché, his publicist and his partner within Cerito Films, Jean-Paul Belmondo’s production company. From the film Ho!, Belmondo will impose it in all his films, which will also be great successes: Peur sur la ville, Flic ou Voyou, Le Professionnel, Le Guignolo, Les Morfalous, L’As des as de Gérard Oury or The Marginal by Jacques Deray.
René Chateau Cast
In 1984, however, the two partners ended up separating, estranged. “The break occurred during the filming of Happy Easter. We particularly focused on the promotional panel designed for the Cannes Film Festival… But I have no bitterness about it. I admire the actor’s innate sense of comedy. What Delon never had, even if I adore him” he would say years later. In 1987, he wrote and produced the kissy Predators of the Night directed by Jesús Franco, offering the title role to his partner at the time, Brigitte Lahaie.
A cult video collection
In 1979, René Chateau embarked, without any subsidy, on a major undertaking of restoration and rediscovery of French cinematographic heritage with his video collection La Mémoire du cinéma français.
A year later, he launched his video publishing company with the legendary Chainsaw Massacre by Tobe Hooper, banned by censorship by five successive Ministers of Culture. Marked by the discovery of the film Big Boss in a cinema in Dakar (!), René Chateau will impose the little dragon on the French public in cinemas. The Fury of the Dragon will thus have 1 million admissions and will put Bruce Lee mania into orbit in France.
René Chateau Cast
Helmut Berger in “The Predators of the Night”.
Buying the assets of twenty French production companies, René Chateau will thus be at the head of a catalog of more than 1000 films which he will publish on VHS then on DVD, even if many collectors will criticize him for the sometimes mediocre quality of the copies published. on DVD. He will also always refuse to take the plunge onto the next physical medium, Blu-ray.