The unbearable Jean-Claude Dusse from the films “Barracas na Praia” (“Les bronzés”, 1978, 1979 and 2006), a great actor in comedy cinema in the 1980s before moving on to dramatic roles and a career as a director, Michel Fuai Blanc died at the age of 72 years, Thursday night to Friday.
Announced by Paris Match magazine, the press officer for his main films, Laurent Renard, confirmed his death to France-Presse (AFP).
The actor suffered a heart attack at night and was transported in a serious condition to a hospital in Paris, his representative explained.
“Gee, Michel… What did you do for us…”, responded the actor Gérard Jugnot, his accomplice from the comic group Splendid, on Instagram, summing up the surprise and emotions of the French public when his death
“Michel, my friend, my brother, my partner”, wrote the actress Josiane Balasko, also part of the group that made them famous, on the same social network.
“This morning, the pain is enormous, proportional to his talent (…). Cinema, the world of culture and all the French people will not forget him”, said the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
The images of Jean-Claude Dusse in “Barracas na Praia” (1978), with Patrice Leconte (1978), or of Denis in “Vai Pela Sombra” (1984), which he directed, are the comic characters of the exasperating losers who earned very popular among the public.
Archetype
In these films, Michel Blanc created a comical archetype, that of the thin man with a mustache, bald, as exasperating as it was exciting, stuck to his skin.
“At the time, we wrote characters that were very close to us. Jean-Claude Dusse was clearly for me, not for Thierry Lhermitte [o playboy de “Barracas na Praia”]. I quickly became afraid that I would be involved with him for the rest of my life,” the actress told Paris Match in an interview this spring.
He then followed other paths, with dramatic roles such as the role of the transvestite Antoine in “Evening Outfit” (1986), with Bertrand Blier, together with Gérard Depardieu, who won the award for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival (‘Ex aequo ‘). by Bob Hoskins for “Mona Lisa”), or the moving “Monsieur Hire” (1989), by Patrice Leconte, based on a book by Georges Simenon, for which he won the César for Best Actor (the “French Oscar”).
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“With his death we will celebrate the actor “Barracas na Praia” and other public achievements […]but we hope we will not forget a film in which he is an actor and director, and ‘Monsieur Hire’, which is a masterpiece”, answered the former president of the Cannes Festival, Gilles Jacob, on X.
Other films from this stage of his career were “The Books of Prospero” (1991), with Peter Greenaway, and “The Monster” (1994) with Roberto Benigni.
Hard-working, perfectionist Michel Blanc knew how to use his complexities and talent as a screenwriter to explore and shape the characters in his films, especially those he directed, such as “Grosse Fatigue” (1994), which he won from them. another prize in Cannes, for Best Screenplay, and “Amor Sem Tréguas” (2002).
In 2006, Patrice Leconte reunited the group of actors from “Barracas na Praia” for a third film, which was a critical failure.
Despite this, Michel Blanc still wanted to work again with his former Splendid partners, as he told Paris Match in the spring.
“Doing things together, yes, but not ‘Baracas na Praia’. We don’t know how to do that comedy anymore. It’s almost 50 years, the world has evolved”, he said.
With another dramatic role in “L’exercice de l’État” (2011), he won his second César, as a supporting actor.
“A Little Zone of Turmoil” (2009), “Mar Cuimhní” (2015), “Raid – Platão Canfrado” (2016) and “Doctor?” (2019) films recently made in Portugal.
One of his last films, “Pequenas Grandes Vitória” (2023), is still being shown in a cinema in Lisbon.