Charles Denner (29 May 1926 – 10 September 1995) was a French actor born to a Jewish family in
Tarnów
Tarnów () is a city in southeastern Poland with 105,922 inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of 269,000 inhabitants. The city is situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999. From 1975 to 1998, it was the capital of the Tarnów ...
, Poland. During his 30-year career he worked with some of France's greatest
directors
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''Di ...
of the time, including
Louis Malle
Louis Marie Malle (; 30 October 1932 – 23 November 1995) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in both Cinema of France, French cinema and Cinema of the United States, Hollywood. Described as "eclectic" and "a fi ...
,
Claude Chabrol
Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (''nouvelle vague'') group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues an ...
,
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran ...
,
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras (short for Konstantinos Gavras; el, Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933) is a Greek-French film director, screenwriter, and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for films with political and s ...
,
Claude Lelouch
Claude Barruck Joseph Lelouch (; born 30 October 1937) is a French film director, screenwriter, writer, cinematographer, actor and film producer, producer. Lelouch grew up in an Algerian Jewish Family. He emerged as a prominent director in the 1 ...
and
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. After a career of more tha ...
, who gave him two of his most memorable roles, as Fergus in ''
The Bride Wore Black
''The Bride Wore Black'' (french: La Mariée était en noir) is a 1968 French film directed by François Truffaut and based on the novel of the same name by William Irish, a pseudonym for Cornell Woolrich. It stars Jeanne Moreau, Charles Den ...
'' (1968) and as Bertrand Morane in ''
The Man Who Loved Women
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' (1977).
Early life
Charles Denner was born in 1926 in the city of
Tarnów
Tarnów () is a city in southeastern Poland with 105,922 inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of 269,000 inhabitants. The city is situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999. From 1975 to 1998, it was the capital of the Tarnów ...
in south-eastern
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
, before emigrating with his family to France at the age of four. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, his family took refuge in
Brive-la-Gaillarde
Brive-la-Gaillarde (; Limousin dialect of oc, Briva la Galharda) is a commune of France. It is a sub-prefecture and the largest city of the Corrèze department. It has around 46,000 inhabitants, while the population of the agglomeration was 7 ...
, where they were helped by Rabbi
David Feuerwerker. Also during the war, Denner was a
Free French
Free France (french: France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general , Free France was established as a government-in-exile ...
partisan in the Vercors mountains and destroyed a
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
SS truck with a
grenade
A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade genera ...
; he was wounded and later received the
Croix de Guerre
The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...
for this operation. Passionate about theatre from his childhood, Denner became a student of
Charles Dullin
Charles Dullin (; 8 May 1885 – 11 December 1949) was a French actor, theater manager and director.
Career
Dullin began his career as an actor in melodrama:185 In 1908, he started his first troupe with Saturnin Fabre, the ''Théâtre de Foire, ...
, a famous theatre teacher of his time, under whose guidance he remained until 1945. Another great personality of French theatre,
Jean Vilar
Jean Vilar (25 March 1912– 28 May 1971) was a French actor and theatre director.
Vilar trained under actor and theatre director Charles Dullin, then toured with an acting company throughout France. His directorial career began in 1943 in a sma ...
, impressed by Denner's performance at ''
Les mamelles de Tirésias
''Les Mamelles de Tirésias'' (''The Breasts of Tiresias'') is an ''opéra bouffe'' by Francis Poulenc, in a prologue and two acts based on the eponymous play by Guillaume Apollinaire. The opera was written in 1945 and first performed in 1947. Ap ...
'' (''The Breasts of Tiresias'') called him four years after he left Vilar to join the
Théâtre National Populaire
The Théâtre national populaire (French for ''People's National Theater'') is a theatre now at Villeurbanne, France. It was founded in 1920 by Firmin Gémier in Paris.
Today, the TNP has a company of ten resident actors and the building is cur ...
(TNP). It was there that he gave some of his earliest stage performances in plays such as
Heinrich von Kleist's ''
Prinz Friedrich von Homburg'' and
Alfred de Musset's ''
Lorenzaccio
''Lorenzaccio'' is a French play of the Romantic period written by Alfred de Musset in 1834, set in 16th-century Florence, and depicting Lorenzino de' Medici, who killed Florence's tyrant, Alessandro de' Medici, his cousin. Having engaged in de ...
'', among others.
Career
In 1955, director
Yves Allégret
Yves Allégret (13 October 1905 – 31 January 1987) was a French film director, often working in the film noir genre. He was born in Asnières-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine and died in Paris.
He was an assistant to film directors such as his brothe ...
offered Denner a small role in ''La Meilleure part'' (''The Best Part''), thus introducing him for the first time to cinema audiences. Two years later, in 1957, he secured another secondary role in
Louis Malle's legendary ''
Elevator to the Gallows
''Elevator to the Gallows'' (french: Ascenseur pour l'échafaud), also known as ''Frantic'' in the U.S. and ''Lift to the Scaffold'' in the U.K., is a 1958 French crime thriller film directed by Louis Malle, starring Jeanne Moreau and Maurice R ...
'', alongside
Jeanne Moreau
Jeanne Moreau (; 23 January 1928 – 31 July 2017) was a French actress, singer, screenwriter, director, and socialite. She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. Mo ...
, a co-performer of his from the days of the TNP; however, it was not until 1963 that Denner was offered his first leading role by
Claude Chabrol
Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (''nouvelle vague'') group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues an ...
in ''
Landru'', a film considered by many as his greatest on-screen performance. Despite his growing recognition on the big screen, the stage remained his true passion and the place where he gave his most memorable performances in plays like
Molière's ''
Les Fourberies de Scapin
''Scapin the Schemer'' (french: Les Fourberies de Scapin) is a three-act comedy of intrigue by the French playwright Molière. The title character Scapin is similar to the archetypical Scapino character. The play was first staged on 24 May 1671 i ...
'' (Scapin's Schemings) and
Brecht's ''
Drums in the Night
''Drums in the Night'' (''Trommeln in der Nacht'') is a play by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht wrote it between 1919 and 1920, and it received its first theatrical production in 1922. It is in the Expressionist style of Ernst Toll ...
''.
Death
On 10 September 1995 Denner died of pneumonia in
Dreux
Dreux () is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.
Geography
Dreux lies on the small river Blaise, a tributary of the Eure, about 35 km north of Chartres. Dreux station has rail connections to Argentan, Paris and Granvi ...
, France.
Filmography
References
External links
*
Charles Denner - All Things Denner
{{DEFAULTSORT:Denner, Charles
1926 births
1995 deaths
20th-century Polish Jews
Deaths from pneumonia in France
20th-century French male actors
French male stage actors
French male film actors
People from Tarnów
People from Eure-et-Loir
Polish emigrants to France
Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France)