Background

Pierre Richard was born Pierre-Richard Maurice Charles Léopold Defays on August 16, 1934, in Valenciennes, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France to the family of a textile industrialist Maurice Defays and Madeleine Paulasini. He is also the grandson of Léopold Defays who was the director of the company Escaut-et-Meuse. His first name comes from the real name of Pierre Richard-Willm who was his mother's favorite actor. His father had left the family before his birth and Richard grew up with his mother and his two grandfathers. He consoles himself through another paternal image, his maternal grandfather, Argimiro Paulasini, as he confides in a second autobiography, Je sais rien, mais je dire tout, released in 2015. Italian immigrant from a small village near Ancona, Argimiro moved to Valenciennes around the age of twenty. Rail carrier, he ended up setting up his business. Pierre Richard has immense admiration for this immigrant grandfather because they shared a common interest in performing arts. On the other hand, the paternal grandfather Léopold Defays, traced him a more serious destiny, by sending him to boarding school.

Pierre Richard spent his childhood and part of his adolescence in the family castle of Rougeville in Saint Saulve, near Valenciennes.

Education

Pierre Richard was a student at the Lycée Henri-Wallon, then a resident of the Notre-Dame institution. In 1944, he was a 6th-year student at the Collège-lycée Jacques-Decour in Paris. In 1953, he joined his mother in Paris where he took drama lessons at the École Charles Dullin. To satisfy the family circle and calm his grandmother's anxieties, he must learn a "real trade." This is how he successfully completed studies in kinesiotherapy, without however giving up the world of entertainment.

Career

Pierre Richard started his acting career at the theatre. He worked with Yves Robert on Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire and its sequel Le retour du grand blond; both these films were written by Francis Veber. Veber cast Richard while directing his own first feature film: Le Jouet. Veber and Richard had a long and successful partnership during the 1980s, highlighted by three comedies - La Chèvre, Les Compères, and Les Fugitifs - which paired Richard with Gérard Depardieu. Richard again moved behind the camera to direct On peut toujours rêver (1991) and Droit dans le mur (1997).

In addition to being an actor and film director, Pierre Richard is also a businessman. He owns the restaurant Au pied de chameau in Paris and a 20-hectare vineyard in Southern France which produces some 80,000 bottles a year, including some 12,000 bottles of rosé labeled as le Bel Évêque.

Achievements

• Richard is considered by many, such as Louis de Funès and Gérard Depardieu, to be one of the greatest and most talented French comedians in the last 50 years. In 1981, Richard was selected to be one of the first Young Leaders of the French-American Foundation. In 2006 the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinema awarded him a lifetime achievement César.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Le petit blond dans un grand parc 1989
  • Comme un poisson sans eau 2003
  • Franchise postale 2010
  • Je sais rien, mais je dirai tout 2015

• movie

  • The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe

    (A frothy French farce, The Tall Blond Man with One Black ...)

    1973
  • The ComDads

    (A desperate woman tells two ex-lovers from her youth that...)

    1983
  • The Toy

    (A journalist, out of work, is forced to accept all the ex...)

    1976
  • Le Distrait 1970
  • Les Malheurs d'Alfred 1972
  • Je sais rien mais je dirai tout 1973
  • The Return of the Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe 1794
  • Les Fugitifs 1986
  • Droit dans le mur 1997

Religion

Pierre Richard is a Roman Catholic.

Politics

Pierre Richard is not known for expressing any political stance.

Views

Pierre Richard is committed to the association Tchendukua Ici et Ailleurs of Eric Julien, which supports the Kogi Indians of Colombia who call themselves the Guardians of the Earth. Since 2007, he is also the godfather of the Association de Solidarité Franconigérienne (ASSOFRANI) whose goal is to create wells in Niger. In 2012, it supported the creation of a TGV station in Narbonne as part of the Montpellier-Perpignan line project, in particular by participating in an advertising campaign which was broadcast nationally in France.

Personality

Pierre Richard is best known for the roles of a clumsy daydreamer in comedy films which became his character trademark as an actor.

Interests

• dancing, music

Connections

On February 19, 1960, Pierre Richard married Danielle Minazzoli (a dancer he met during studying at École Charles Dullin) with whom he had two children, Christophe and Olivier. Ather they divorced Richard married an Algerian woman Aisha Zazar. After the following divorce, he married the Brazilian model Ceyla Lacerda in 1996.

Father:

Maurice Defays

Mother:

Madeleine Paulasini

Grandfather:

Léopold Defays

Grandfather:

Argimiro Paulasini

ex-wife:

Danielle Minazzoli

Son:

Olivier Defays

Son:

Christophe Defays

Wife:

Ceyla Lacerda

ex-wife:

Aisha Zazar

Friend:

Gerard Depardieu

References

• Pierre Richard's Official Website