Claude Brasseur

Claude Brasseur, born Claude Pierre Espinasse on 15 June 1936 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, was a French actor whose career spanned stage and screen across several decades. The son of actor Pierre Brasseur and actress Odette Joyeux, he was also the godson of Ernest Hemingway and the father of actor Alexandre Brasseur. He died on 22 December 2020 at the age of 84 and is buried alongside his father at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Brasseur brought his stage work to an international audience in 1968, when he appeared on Broadway in both the musical The Three Musketeers and in Tartuffe. His screen career, which began in the late 1950s and continued until two years before his death, encompassed approximately 150 film and television productions. Among his earlier film credits was the role of Arthur in Jean-Luc Godard's Bande à part in 1964. In the early 1970s, he took on the title role in the historical crime television series The New Adventures of Vidocq. He reached a wide commercial audience with the comedies La Boum in 1980 and La Boum 2 in 1982, in which he portrayed the father of Sophie Marceau's teenage character.

Beyond his work as a performer, Brasseur was a member of the French bobsleigh team during the 1960s and competed in the Paris-Dakar rally as co-pilot to Jacky Ickx, a partnership that produced a winning result.