Bruno Cremer

Bruno Jean Marie Cremer 6 October 1929 7 August 2010 was a French actor best known for portraying Jules Maigret on French television from 1991 to 2005 Bruno Cremer was born in SaintMandé ValdeMarne in the eastern suburbs of Paris France His mother Jeanne Rullaert a musician was of Belgian Flemish origin and his father Georges was a businessman from Lille who though born French had taken out Belgian nationality after the French armed forces refused to accept him for service in the First World War Bruno himself opted for French nationality when he reached the age of 18 His childhood was largely spent in Paris Bruno attended the Cours Hattemer a private school Having completed his secondary studies he followed an interest in acting which had interested him since the age of 12 and trained in acting from 1952 at Frances highly selective Conservatoire national supérieur dart dramatique English French National Academy of Dramatic Arts His career began with ten years spent acting in live theatre playing roles drawn from works of Shakespeare Oscar Wilde and Jean Anouilh Aged already 30 he created the role of Thomas Becket in the 1959 world premiere of Anouilhs Becket and held Anouilh in veneration all his life Later Cremer played Max in a French production of Bent by Martin Sherman in 1981 He regarded his basic profession as that of a stage actor though he gravitated firmly to films It was in 1957 that Cremer had his first credited part in a film Quand la femme sen mêle When a woman meddles which starred Alain Delon However it was in 1965 that Cremers career really began to prosper with the film La 317e section The 317th Platoon directed by Pierre Schoendoerffer and set in Indochina during the French colonial wars From then onwards Cremer became a popular actor and appeared in over 110 productions for cinema and television While Cremer tried to avoid labels and typecasting he tended to be offered toughguy roles often military men Examples from various points in his career include Section spéciale 1975 La légion saute sur Kolwezi 1980 and Làhaut un roi audessus des nuages 2004 Special Section French original title Section spéciale released in 1975 is about a kangaroo court set up in collaborationist Vichy France to ensure judicial convictions of innocent people so as to mollify the Nazis A French language film directed by the GreekFrench film director CostaGavras it features Cremer as Lucien Sampaix a Communistleaning journalist The 1980 film La légion saute sur Kolwezi English Operation Leopard directed by Raoul Coutard is a documentarystyle portrayal of a reallife operation headed by the French Foreign Legion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1978 to rescue foreign hostages Cremer plays a military commander Pierre Schoendoerffers 2004 film Làhaut un roi audessus des nuages Above the Clouds based on his own novel Làhaut Cremer played the Colonel Source Article Bruno Cremer from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30