Biography
François Jean Blanche, known as "Francis Blanche" (20 July 1921 – 6 July 1974) was a French actor, singer, humorist and author. He was a very popular figure on stage, radio and in films, during the 1950s and 1960s. His two daughters, Barbara & Dominique, are artists with their studios in Eze.
Blanche was born in an artistic family, mainly of stage actors—including his father Louis Blanche and his uncle, Emmanuel Blanche, who was a painter—. He completed his secondary schooling at fourteen, the youngest in France to do so at the time.
In the 1940s and 1950s, Blanche was part of Robert Dhéry's theatrical company Les Branquignols, with whom he played in the film Ah! Les belles bacchantes, starring Robert Dhéry, Colette Brosset (Dhéry's then-wife), and Louis de Funès; directed by Jean Loubignac in 1954.
Blanche teamed up with Pierre Dac to form a comic duo best remembered for Le Sâr Rabindranath Duval, a sketch about a phony and nonsensical Indian clairvoyant and guru (1957). They also created a popular and equally nonsensical radiophonic series, loosely based on a highly improbable espionage and conspiration plot, Malheur aux barbus, which was broadcast on Paris Inter in 213 episodes from 1951 to 1952. The same plot and characters were revived on Europe 1 in a series called Signé Furax, enjoying no less than 1,034 daily episodes between 1956 and 1960. Both broadcasts were phenomenal audience successes in the pre-television era. Blanche was also renowned for broadcasting phone pranks, in which he entertained listeners by making the most improbable situations sound plausible.
He wrote poems, and the lyrics of 673 songs. On stage, he acted in Tartuffe and Néron and, in 1955, Chevalier du Ciel, an operetta by Luis Mariano at the Gaîté-Lyrique theatre.
Blanche also enjoyed a successful cinematographic career, both as an actor and scriptwriter. He appeared as a hard-headed German colonel ("Obersturmführer Schulz") opposite Brigitte Bardot in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre (1959). He was one of the favourite actors of French filmmaker Georges Lautner, and played Maître Folace (a shady solicitor counselling a colourful gangster mob) in Les Tontons flingueurs (1963). Blanche also appeared in Boris Vassilief's Les Barbouzes (1964).
He delighted in parodying classical music, adapting famous works such as Schubert's "Die Forelle" (The Trout) into a crazy and slightly risqué piece about a 16-year-old romantic girl obsessed with Schubert's song to the point of giving birth to a live trout while performing it on her piano. Similarly, he turned Beethoven's 5th Symphony into a lengthy and quite repetitive musical glorification of the clothes peg and its fictitious inventor, Jérémie-Victor Opdebec.
Blanche died at the age of 52, from a heart attack with a background of untreated Type 1 diabetes. He is buried in Èze cemetery.
Source: Article "Francis Blanche" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Filmography
all 125
Movies 118
self 9
TV Shows 7
Writer 4
Les 100 vies de Francis Blanche (2022)
Comiques de toujours (Vol. 1 à 4) (2009)
Signé Furax (1981)
A Whale That Had a Toothache (1975)
No Pockets in a Shroud (1974)
Say it with Flowers (1974)
OK Patron (1974)
Par le sang des autres (1974)
La Dernière Bourrée à Paris (1973)
The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot (1973)
Le Solitaire (1973)
Racconti romani di una ex-novizia (1973)
I. You. They. (1973)
La Grande Bouffe (1973)
I've Had It (1973)
The Terror with Cross-Eyes (1972)
The Eroticist (1972)
Midi trente (1972)
Scandal Man (1972)
Êtes-vous fiancée à un marin grec ou à un pilote de ligne ? (1971)
La Grande Maffia (1971)
Il furto è l'anima del commercio!?... (1971)
Qu'est-ce qui fait courir les crocodiles ? (1971)
Les jambes en l'air (1971)
The Great Java (1971)
Samedi soir (1971)
Ces messieurs de la gâchette (1970)
Adieu Berthe (1970)
The Stud (1970)
Poussez pas grand-père dans les cactus (1969)
Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille (1969)
Aux frais de la princesse (1969)
Erotissimo (1969)
Les Gros Malins (1969)
Faites donc plaisir aux amis (1969)
Le Bourgeois gentil mec (1969)
À bout portant (1968)
The Big Wash (1968)
Rita the Field Marshal (1967)
Du mou dans la gâchette (1967)
The Great Gadget (1967)
Belle de Jour (1967)
Le canard en fer blanc (1967)
Deux Romains en Gaule (1967)
Les Compagnons de la marguerite (1967)
The Big Grasshopper (1967)
The Men in the Family (1967)
Les Enquiquineurs (1966)
Les malabars sont au parfum (1966)
La Sentinelle endormie (1966)
Under Your Hat (1965)
Pas de caviar pour tante Olga (1965)
The Real Bargain (1965)
Le bonheur conjugal (1965)
Les Baratineurs (1965)
Chance at Love (1964)
Les Gorilles (1964)
The Great Spy Chase (1964)
La Belle Arabelle (1964)
The Big Scare (1964)
Les Pieds nickelés (1964)
Male Hunt (1964)
Champagne for Savages (1964)
The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower (1964)
The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers (1964)
Clémentine chérie (1964)
Requiem pour un caid (1964)
Jaloux comme un tigre (1964)
Dandelions by the Roots (1964)
Actualités télérévisées (1964)
The Black Tulip (1964)
Les Gros Bras (1963)
Crooks in Clover (1963)
Sweet and Sour (1963)
Thank Heaven for Small Favors (1963)
The Virgins (1963)
People in Luck (1963)
L'Abominable Homme des douanes (1963)
Who Stole the Body? (1963)
Tartarin de Tarascon (1962)
The Hideout (1962)
Snobs ! (1962)
Accroche-toi, y'a du vent! (1962)
The Seventh Juror (1962)
The Vendetta (1962)
Hitch-Hike (1962)
Operation Gold Ingot (1962)
Romulus and the Sabines (1961)
The Girl of a Thousand Months (1961)
House of Sin (1961)
Les Livreurs (1961)
Vive Henri IV... vive l'amour! (1961)
The Bear (1960)
Little Girls and High Finance (1960)
Le Olimpiadi dei mariti (1960)
We Like It Cold (1960)
Love and the Frenchwoman (1960)
Le pillole di Ercole (1960)
Easy Come Easy Go (1960)
Long Live the Duke! (1960)
Some Like It... Cold (1960)
Match contre la mort (1959)
The Green Mare (1959)
Babette Goes to War (1959)
Too Late to Love (1959)
The Indestructible (1959)
The Motorcycle Cops (1959)
The Little Professor (1959)
Discorama (1959)
Toto in Paris (1958)
A Dog, A Mouse and a Sputnik (1958)
Anyone Can Kill Me (1957)
La Polka des menottes (1957)
Honoré de Marseille (1956)
Life is beautiful (1956)
Cinépanorama (1956)
La Course Aux Etoiles (1955)
Peek-a-boo (1954)
Trust Me! (1954)
Midnight... Quai de Bercy (1953)
Good Enough to Eat (1951)
Ils ont vingt ans (1950)
The Sad Sack (1950)
The Killer is Listening (1948)
Frédérica (1942)
Ratings
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Information
Known ForActing
GenderMale
Birthday1921-07-20
Deathday1974-07-06 (52 years old)
Birth NameFrancis Jean Blanche
Birth Place11th arrondissement of Paris, France
ChildrenJean-Marie Blanche
CitizenshipsFrance
Also Known AsFrancis-Jean Blanche
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