Jean Canolle died

I’m a month late. I just know that now: Jean Canolle died this Tuesday, September 15 at age 90. The media didn’t talk more than that… It’s true that I watch much television and the Internet there is some announcements that I missed: nouvelobs.com, nostalgie.fr…

He was born in Monaco (In Paris Theater * No. 154 of November 1959 in Toulon they say…) May 25, 1919. Before the war he moved to Paris where he wrote, makes the theater and film as assistant director. During the war he was a conscientious objector, like me. We talked once in a coffee Blandy-les-Tours, where he told me he had almost died. The French had locked all the conscientious objectors at a shelter and had left under the tires of enemies!

After the war he wrote his first novel Le grand péché de Fontcouverte and made his first short films. He wrote his plays and will play with success: La petite Phèdre (1952), Hamlet de Tarascon (1954 Théâtre La Bruyère), Lady Godiva (1958 Théâtre Edouard VII with Sylvia Montfort), La Jument du Roi (1959 with Jacques Fabbri ) …

In 1961 is published daily on the ORTF Time of mates he has authored. It will also carry television movies that have as their success Maurin des Maures (1970), La Calanque (1987).

I met him for the first time in 1994. He came to see my show Le Funambule by Jean Genet. A few months later, I was nervous, I sat at home among other actors and actresses and we were reading his play La Florentine. Happy and proud I was part of his newly founded company: La compagnie d’Harcourt. I played under his leadership four shows: La Florentine, L’assemblée des femmes, Les Fioretti and Le Prix Martin.

I am very pleased to have started my career as an actor at his side. He wanted his troops in the ideology of Jean Vilar, a theatrical work for all elitist. That the spectator fun, laughs but also to learn before the show with a speech he made to “get” his play. I adhered to one hundred percent. I dreamed of Jean Vilar, Gérard Philipe, I couldn’t come at a better!

He liked to use my knowledge of Mime, something I appreciated. The city of Melun has done much for the company. Then gradually he really retired but still had that love of writing and projects. I met him unexpectedly in the street, he worked as director for a TV in the Essonne. It was a role for me… It was the last time I saw him.

Bye Jean Canolle.
At soon.