(1925- )
Actor, director, producer, and screen-writer. Michel Piccoli was born Jacques Daniel Michel Piccoli in Paris. His mother was a pianist and his father a violinist. He studied drama under Andrée Bauer-Thérond and René Simon and later worked simultaneously as a stage and film actor. He debuted in cinema with a small role in Christian-Jacque's 1945 film Sortilèges, followed by a more substantial part in Louis Daquin's 1949 Le point du jour. Damien cast Piccoli in another film that same year, titled Le parfum de la dame en noir. In the early 1950s, Piccoli appeared in three short films by director Paul Paviot and acted a second time for Christian-Jacque in a segment of the film Destinées (1954). Piccoli played minor roles in a number of films by major French directors in the mid-1950s, including Jean Renoir's French Cancan (1955), René Clair's Les Grands Maneouvres (1955), Alexandre Astruc's Les Mauvaises rencontres (1955), Jean Delannoy's Marie-Antoinette Reine de France (1955), and Raymond Rouleau's Les Sorcières de Salem (1956). He played a supporting role in Christian-Jacque's 1957 Nathalie and acted for the first time for Louis Bunuel in La mort en ce jardin (1956).
Piccoli's major performances began in the 1960s with his starring role beside Brigitte Bardot in Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mépris (1963). He provided a voiceover for the Nouvelle Vague or New Wave forerunner, Agnès Varda, in her Salut les cubains (1963), and he later delivered leading roles in Varda's Les Créatures (1966), Roger Vadim's La Curée (1966), and Bunuel's Belle de jour (1967). In 1965, he played the title role in Marcel Bluwal's popular television film, Dom Juan ou le festin de Pierre, a role that increased his popular appeal. In the same decade, Piccoli had supporting roles in Constantin Costa-Gavras's Compartiment tueurs (1965) and Un homme de trop (1967), Alain Resnais's Le guerre est finie (1966), Bunuel's Le journal d'une femme de chambre (1964) and La Voie lactée (1969), Jacques Demy's Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), and Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz (1969). He also starred opposite Catherine Deneuve in Alain Cavalier's La Chamade (1968). He started acting for Italian director Marco Ferreri in Dillinger è morto (1969). His fame would later soar with his performance in Ferreri's provocative and challenging La grande bouffe (1973).
In 1970, Piccoli began another fruitful collaboration with director Claude Sautet in Les choses de la vie (1970), where he costarred with Romy Schneider. In addition, he played significant parts in Claude Chabrol's La Décade prodigieuse (1971), Yves Boisset's L'Attentat (1972), Michel Deville's La Femme en bleu (1973), Claude Faraldo's Themroc (1973), Chabrol's Les noces rouges (1973), Sautet's Vincent, François, Paul, et les autres (1974), Jacques Ruffio's Sept morts sur ordonnance (1975), Sautet'sMado (1976), Bertrand Tavernier's Des enfants gatés (1977), and Francis Girod's L'État sauvage (1978). Piccoli began producing in the 1970s. His films as producer include Themroc and L'État sauvage. In the same decade, Piccoli published a memoir titled Dialogues égoïstes (1976).
In 1980, Piccoli won his first major award for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. The award was for his work in Marco Belloccio's Salto nel vuoto. Also in 1980, Piccoli acted in Louis Malle's American feature, Atlantic City. In 1982, he won a Silver Berlin Bear for his interpretation in Pierre Granier-Deferre's Une étrange affaire. Piccoli also gave memorable performances in Godard's Passion (1982) and Demy's Une chambre en ville (1982). Later in the decade, he played starring roles in Claude Lelouch's Viva la vie! (1984), Leos Carax's Mauvais sang (1986), and Malle's Milou en mai (1989).
Piccoli also tried his hand at directing, making his debut with a segment for the film Contre l'oubli (1991). He followed with the short Train de nuit (1994) and his first feature film Alors voilà (1997). Also in the 1990s, Piccoli starred in Jacques Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse (1991). He costarred with Deneuve again in both Raoul Ruiz's Généalogies d'un crime (1997) and Manoel de Oliveira's Je rentre à la maison (2001). Piccoli directed and scripted La plage noire (2001), starring Dominique Blanc, and C'est pas tout à fait la vie dont j'avais rêvé (2004). Piccoli is one of France's most inventive and prolific entertainers. His energetic film career includes performances in more than two hundred television and cinema films.
Historical Dictionary of French Cinema by Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins
Guide to cinema. Academic. 2011.