Claude Giraud

Claude Pierre Edmond Giraud was born on 5 February 1936 in Chamalières, France, and died on 3 November 2020 in Saint-Priest-des-Champs. A French stage and screen actor, he received formal training at several institutions, studying under Tania Balachova at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier and under Berthe Bovy and Jean Meyer at the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre. In November 1957 he was admitted to the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique, where his teachers included Jean Debucourt and Fernand Ledoux. At the conclusion of his studies there, he became the first male student to take top honors in all three competition categories: Classical Comedy, Modern Comedy, and Tragedy. In 1962 he was the inaugural recipient of the Prix Gérard Philipe.

That same year, Giraud joined the Comédie Française as a pensionnaire. His roles there included Valère in Molière's The Miser, Arsace in Corneille's Bérénice, and the narrator in a stage adaptation of André Gide's Le retour de l'enfant prodigue. Finding himself limited to minor parts, he departed the company after a few months to pursue film work. His screen credits from this period include the leading role of Capitaine Langlois in François Leterrier's 1962 adaptation of Jean Giono's novel A King Without Distraction, and the role of Oedipus in a film adaptation of Jean Cocteau's The Infernal Machine.

In October and November of 1963, Giraud joined the Compagnie Marie Bell for a North American tour that took the company to New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., and Princeton. At the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Broadway, he appeared in two productions: Phèdre, in which he played Hippolyte, and Bérénice, in which he played Titus. For these performances he received the Theatre World Award in 1964.

Giraud's film work continued with the role of soldier Georges in Roger Vadim's Circle of Love, an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde. Between 1964 and 1966 he appeared in three films in the Angélique series alongside Michèle Mercier, playing Philippe de Plessis-Bellières in Angélique, Marquise des Anges, Marvelous Angelique, and Angelique and the King. In 1973 he played the fictional Arab revolutionary leader Mohamed Larbi Slimane in The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob with Louis de Funès.

On television, Giraud built a substantial body of work across several decades. He played the hero Morgan, also known as Jacques de Saint-Hermine, in the adventure series Les Compagnons de Jéhu, directed by Michel Drach and adapted from the Alexandre Dumas novel. He appeared as Sir Roger Mortimer in the series Les Rois maudits, and as corrupt banker Silas Toronthal in the 1979 series Mathias Sandorf, based on Jules Verne's novel. In the 1976 television film Mamie Rose he played Régis, whose marriage is saved by an au-pair grandmother portrayed by Gisèle Casadesus. In 1967, Bernard Toublanc-Michel cast him as d'Aulnay in Adolphe ou l'âge tendre.

Giraud returned to the Comédie Française in 1972 and was named its 460th sociétaire in 1976. He left the company again in 1982 to join Jean-Laurent Cochet's newly established Théâtre Hébertot.

In his personal life, Giraud married Catherine Marquand, a fellow student from the Conservatoire, in 1963. She died in 2012. They had two children: a son, Louis, born in 1963, and a daughter, Marianne, born in 1966, who became an actress and married French actor and director Jean Martinez. From 1987, Giraud lived in Vernadel, near Saint-Priest-des-Champs in Auvergne, where he operated a Connemara stud farm called Haras du Boissis. He was buried in Saint-Priest-des-Champs on 7 November 2020.