A thousand fast lives. Jean-Paul Belmondo was the darling of France and beautiful women

“You touched me! This beautiful Palma arouses a deep movement in me. I want to thank everyone who is here – those I know and don’t know. Thanks from the bottom of my heart, “said the actor. It was hard to believe that it was the grateful and wounded man who “played” and “got angry” all his film life. He caused another standing ovation at the time. “We love you, Bebel!” The fans shouted at him.

The world knows him from the films Crazy Petříček, The Man from Rio and Hong Kong, The Big Boss, Fear of the City, The Cop or the Grate, The Body of My Enemy or The Loner. He took it to heart like an angry boy, a distracted adventurer, and a tough cop. But he was also a successful theater actor.

A graduate of the Paris Conservatory shone on the boards, especially in the roles of classical figures such as Kean or Cyrano from Bergerac. “We played in barns, bistros, hangars. And even in the garages, where the owner of the car sometimes came in the middle of the show, “he recalled for the media about his student years and playing with friends (including the late Jean Rochefort).

Like administrative candrdas partying and making up the quarries, Belmondo had, of course, a primary one.

I upset people

It was only a matter of time before the silver screen appeared. “I came under the headlights in 1960 and I never left them. Jean-Luc Godard sealed my destiny with the film At the End of His Breath, “he wrote in his memoirs of My Thousand Lives, which were published five years ago (in our country a year later at the Prague publishing house).

It was Michel Poiccard alias Laszlo Kovacs in Godard’s film At the End of the Breath (1960) that was the role that catapulted him to the forefront of the French new wave. “After the gala premiere, I woke up as a movie star. From then on, the offers just rained, “he remarked. The figure of a loose rebel, whom Godard sent to the fateful baton in the streets of Paris, seems to be most similar to Jean-Paul himself and his life. Wild, unfettered and impatient.

“I have shown freedom and joy in life since I was little, perhaps because I was a child of war, perhaps because my parents showed them to me and allowed them. Of course, I chose abbreviations, crossed borders, disturbed order, and upset people with traditional thinking. And he charmed the modernists, “he summed up himself aptly in his memoirs.

I loved all women

De Brok’s Man from Rio moved him to the field of commercial production, until the mid-1980s he was characterized by figures of irresistible adventurers and cynical heroes, whose smile no woman resisted. In front of and behind the camera… There were, of course, more of his fateful wives, including actresses Ursula Andress and Laura Antonelli, but he was married only twice to Elodia Constantin and Natty Belmond. “I loved them all,” the actor admits gallantly in the book.

Among his great friends was Jean Gabin, with whom he made Monkey in the Winter, a film he still values ​​highly. From his collaboration with him, he took on the motto: “Play the way you like it.” Borsalino.

A thousand fast lives

In later life, he preferred theatrical boards, he founded his own production company Cerito, named after his grandmother’s maiden name. In 2001, he suffered a stroke in Corsica, but even with this unfavorable fate, he was able to fight it due to his tenacity. The last film where he appeared was The Man and His Dog (2008), shot in such a way that it does not unnecessarily reveal the actor’s difficult-to-move hand and speech.

He was the holder of the Order of the Legion of Honor, the highest French state award. “I turn more now and look to the past. Those thousand lives passed quickly, far too fast – they passed at the same speed as I drove cars, “he confided in the book My Thousand Lives. “And I feel like they were incredible.” We can’t help but agree. Au revoir, Jean-Paul!

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