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Gérard Oury

Director · 1919 – 2006 · Paris, France

Gérard Oury (born Max-Gérard Houry Tannenbaum; 29 April 1919 – 20 July 2006) was a French film director, actor and writer. He is best known for a number of comedies he directed and co-wrote between the 1960s and 1980s, most notably The Sucker (1965), Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (1966), The Brain (1969), The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973), and Ace of Aces (1982). Max-Gérard Houry-Tannenbaum was the only son of Serge Tannenbaum, a violinist of Russian-Jewish origin, and French Jewish Marcelle Houry, a journalist and art critic. Tannenbaum was absent from the life of Oury and he was raised in an unobservant house of his mother and maternal grandmother Berthe Goldner. Oury studied at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and then at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art. He became a member of the Comédie-Française before World War II, but fled with all his family (mother, grandmother and unofficial wife, actress Jacqueline Roman) to Switzerland to escape the anti-Jewish persecutions by the Vichy government. When in 1942 his daughter Danièle Thompson was born, his fatherhood was concealed, to avoid her classification as a Jew. After 1945 he returned to the liberated Paris and restarted his career as an actor, performing in the theatre and in supporting roles in the cinema. Oury became a movie director in 1959 (The Itchy Palm) and gained his first success in 1961 with Crime Does Not Pay (Le crime ne paie pas). Pairing André Bourvil and Louis de Funès as a comic duo, he burst into commercial filmmaking with 1965's The Sucker (Le corniaud). The film was entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival. The following year, Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (La Grande Vadrouille) was even more successful, attracting the largest audiences ever in France (17.27 million admissions). This box-office record stood for decades, only surpassed in 1997 by Titanic from James Cameron. Oury shot the 1969 comedy Le Cerveau (The Brain) in English, starring David Niven in the lead role as a criminal mastermind. With actress Jacqueline Roman, he was the father of French writer Danièle Thompson and grandfather of actor/writer Christopher Thompson. He lived together with the French actress Michèle Morgan for the second half of his life. He died aged 87 in Saint-Tropez on 20 July 2006. Source: Article "Gérard Oury" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.

Movies22

  • Movie6.7

    The Prize

    1963 · 119 votes

  • Movie6.3

    The Journey

    1959 · 27 votes

  • Movie5.9

    La donna del fiume

    Woman of the River

    1954 · 11 votes

  • Movie6.4

    The Sword and the Rose

    1953 · 25 votes

  • Movie5.9

    Un homme et une femme, 20 ans déjà

    A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later

    1986 · 34 votes

  • Movie6.2

    Antoine et Antoinette

    Antoine & Antoinette

    1947 · 48 votes

  • Movie8.0

    Belmondo l'incorrigible

    Belmondo: The Incorrigible

    2022 · 6 votes

  • Movie6.4

    Sans laisser d'adresse

    Without Leaving an Address

    1951 · 16 votes

  • Movie9.0

    L'amante di Paride

    Loves of Three Queens

    1954 · 1 votes

  • Movie5.9

    They Who Dare

    1954 · 24 votes

  • Movie5.8

    Sea Devils

    1953 · 32 votes

  • Movie6.1

    Garou-Garou, le passe-muraille

    Mr. Peek-a-Boo

    1951 · 51 votes

  • Movie6.3

    Le Miroir à deux faces

    The Mirror Has Two Faces

    1958 · 26 votes

  • Movie6.1

    La nuit est mon royaume

    The Night Is My Kingdom

    1951 · 21 votes

  • Movie8.1

    Les héros sont fatigués

    Heroes and Sinners

    1955 · 7 votes

  • Movie5.9

    Le septième ciel

    Seventh Heaven

    1958 · 13 votes

  • Movie6.5

    Father Brown

    1954 · 31 votes

  • Movie6.5

    Le Dos au mur

    Back to the Wall

    1958 · 31 votes

  • Movie7.0
  • Movie6.8

    The Heart of the Matter

    1953 · 12 votes

  • Movie7.7

    Les Petits Riens

    Little Nothings

    1941 · 3 votes

  • Movie8.0

    I cavalieri dell'illusione

    The Fate of Two Queens

    1954 · 1 votes

Series14

  • TV5.7

    Sacrée soirée

    1987 · 5 votes

  • TV6.8

    Champs-Elysées

    1982 · 9 votes

  • TV3.6

    Vivement dimanche

    1998 · 9 votes

  • TV6.0
  • TV8.5

    Apostrophes

    1975 · 4 votes

  • TV9.5

    Spécial cinéma

    1974 · 2 votes

  • TV8.0

    Le Grand Échiquier

    1972 · 3 votes

  • TV5.0

    Ciné regards

    1978 · 1 votes

  • TV6.0

    Samedi soir

    1971 · 1 votes

  • TV6.1

    Nulle part ailleurs

    1987 · 8 votes

  • TV8.7

    Cinépanorama

    1956 · 3 votes

  • TV
  • TV8.0

    À bout portant

    1968 · 1 votes

  • TV