Jean Piat

Jean Piat was a French actor and writer born on 23 September 1924 in Lannoy, Nord. He died on 18 September 2018, five days before his 94th birthday, of a heart attack.

Piat joined the Comédie-Française on 1 September 1947 and was elevated to full membership on 1 January 1953. Over the course of his tenure, he performed a wide range of roles in the company's classical repertoire, including Don César de Bazan in Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas, Cyrano in Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, Figaro in Pierre Beaumarchais's The Barber of Seville, La Flèche in Molière's The Miser, Pasquin in Marivaux's Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard, Benvolio in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and Covielle in Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, among others. He departed the Comédie-Française on 31 December 1972 and was granted honorary membership the following day.

In 1955, Piat appeared on Broadway in two productions: Arlequin Poli par l'Amour and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

His screen career began in 1947 with the film Rouletabille joue et gagne, in which he played Joseph Rouletabille, a role he reprised in the 1948 sequel Rouletabille contre la dame de pique. He appeared in the 1955 film Napoléon as Junot and in the 1968 film Tower of Screaming Virgins as Bouridan. On television, he played Henri de Lagardère in the 1967 mini-series Lagardère and Robert d'Artois in the 1972–1973 mini-series Les Rois maudits.

Piat was also an active voice actor in French-dubbed versions of major international productions. He provided the French voice for Ian McKellen's portrayal of Gandalf across all three Lord of the Rings films and all three Hobbit films, as well as for Jeremy Irons as Scar in The Lion King, Tony Jay as Judge Claude Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Ian McKellen as Iorek Byrnison in The Golden Compass.

He held the rank of officer in both the Légion d'honneur and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and was a grand officer in the Ordre national du Mérite. Piat was married to actress Françoise Engel, who died in 2005, and served as a professor of dramatic arts at the Simon Course.