French film legend Jean-Louis Trintignant is dead. The character actor, who made his breakthrough with Brigitte Bardot alongside Brigitte Bardot, died at the age of 91, according to the AFP news agency on Friday, citing a Message from the actor’s wife reported.
Trintignant has appeared in more than 140 film and television roles, including A Man and a Woman, My Night at Maud’s and Three Colors Red, which made him an international star.
Trintignant worked with the biggest names in the film business. With Costa-Gavras he shot the political thriller “Z”. His role as coroner earned him the Best Actor award at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.
This was followed by Alain Robbe-Grillet’s “Liar”, Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Great Error” and “The Wild Sheep” with Romy Schneider, in which he embodies a woman seducer.
Director Michael Haneke brought Trintignant back to film after a break of several years. In 2012’s “Love,” he plays a pensioner who puts his wife, who is bedridden after a stroke, out of misery. Again with Haneke, whom he considered the best director in the world, he directed 2017’s “Happy End”.
Trintignant was born on December 11, 1930 in Piolenc in southern France into a well-to-do family of industrialists. He began his career in the theater, to which he remained faithful throughout his life.
