Jean-Paul Moulinot

Jean-Paul Moulinot (30 June 1912 – 3 December 1989) was a French actor and sociétaire of the Comédie-Française. Born in 1912, he built a career spanning several decades across French theater institutions, international festivals, and Broadway.

Moulinot's early theatrical work included productions at the Théâtre des Mathurins in the mid-1940s, where he appeared in Molière's Tartuffe directed by Marcel Herrand in 1945, followed by Claude Spaak's Primavera in 1946 and Steve Passeur's Je vivrai un grand amour in 1947. His association with director Jean Vilar proved central to his career. He participated in the inaugural Festival d'Avignon in 1947, and when the Théâtre National Populaire reopened in 1951, Moulinot joined its troupe. He remained with the TNP throughout the entirety of Vilar's tenure as director. His wife, Elisabeth (Yvette) Hardy (1917–2000), was herself a comedian at the TNP.

During his years at the TNP, Moulinot appeared in a wide range of productions. He performed in Jean Vilar's staging of Mother Courage by Bertolt Brecht in 1951, and in 1952 took part in both Vilar's production of The Miser by Molière and the Festival d'Avignon staging of Alfred de Musset's Lorenzaccio, directed by Gérard Philipe. In 1956 he directed Les Femmes savantes by Molière at the TNP Théâtre de Chaillot, and that same year appeared in Jean Vilar's production of Le Mariage de Figaro at the Festival d'Avignon. He continued performing with the TNP through the early 1960s in productions including Erik XIV by August Strindberg, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Brecht, and Antigone by Sophocles, among others.

In 1958, Moulinot appeared on Broadway, with credits including Don Juan, Lorenzaccio, Marie Tudor, and Le Cid. These productions brought his work with the TNP to American audiences during the company's visit that year.

Following his time at the TNP, Moulinot was admitted to the Comédie-Française in 1966, where his first productions included Molière's Les Femmes savantes directed by Jean Meyer and Georges Courteline and Jules Lévy's Le commissaire est bon enfant directed by Robert Manuel. Over the following decades he appeared in an extensive roster of productions at the institution, encompassing works by Molière, Victor Hugo, Marivaux, Regnard, Labiche, Feydeau, Montherlant, Anouilh, Strindberg, Brecht, Chekhov, Max Frisch, Corneille, and Samuel Beckett, among others. Notable among these were multiple productions of Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo, and the 1976 Comédie-Française staging of Lorenzaccio directed by Franco Zeffirelli. His final production at the institution was Beckett's Endgame, directed by Gildas Bourdet in 1988. Moulinot was named the 481st sociétaire of the Comédie-Française in 1989, the year of his death on 3 December. In 1960 he provided the French dubbing voice for the narrator of Ben-Hur.