Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Gerard Oury, the director who made one of the most popular French films of all time "La Grande Vadrouille", died Thursday at the age of 87 at his home in Saint-Tropez, his agent said.
Oury made a series of extremely successful comedy capers in the 1960s and 1970s, many starring the comic actors Louis de Funes and Bourvil.
Released in 1966, "La Grande Vadrouille" -- known in English as "Don't Look Now, We're Being Shot At" -- was about an Allied pilot trying to escape from occupied France during World War II, and also starred the English actor Terry-Thomas.
The film was seen by 17 million people at the cinema -- a French record which was only overtaken 32 years later by James Cameron's "Titanic".
Among Oury's other hits was "Le Cerveau" -- "The Brain" -- which starred Bourvil, Jean-Paul Belmondo and David Niven, and "Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob" with de Funes.
Born in Paris in 1919, Oury began his career as a theatre actor at the "Comedie Francaise". Being Jewish, he fled France for Monaco and Switzerland during World War II.
In the 1950s he played French roles in several British films -- including "Father Brown" alongside Alec Guinness and "The Heart of the Matter" with Trevor Howard" -- but gave up acting for directing at the end of the decade.
In all he made 17 films, the latest -- "Le Schpountz" -- in 1999.
Since 1958 he lived with the actress Michele Morgan -- star of 1938 classic "Le Quai des Brumes" -- though they never married. She survives him.
His daughter, born in 1942, is the film director Daniele Thompson.
hs/cc
AFPEntertainment-France-film-Oury
AFP 200936 GMT 07 06
COPYRIGHT 2004 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.
