French actor and filmmaker Jacques Perrin, who starred in dozens of films including Cinema Paradiso and The Young Girls of Rochefort and co-directed Winged Migration, has died at the age of 80, his family told AFP.
“The family has the immense sadness of informing you of the death of filmmaker Jacques Perrin, who died on Thursday, April 21 in Paris. He passed away peacefully,” they announced in a statement sent to AFP by his son, Mathieu Simonet.
Born in Paris on July 13, 1941, Perrin appeared in more than 70 films in a long career spanning the 1950s to the present day.
Equally at home in French and Italian cinema, Perrin got his first leading role starring alongside Claudia Cardinale in Girl with a Suitcase in 1961.
Familiar to cinemagoers for his grey-to-white hair and soft voice, Perrin was frequently cast as a military officer and was known for The 317th Platoon in 1965, Drummer-Crab in 1977 and A Captain’s Honor in 1982, all three directed by Pierre Schoendoerffer.
He also starred opposite Catherine Deneuve in the Jacques Demy musicals The Young Girls of Rochefort and Donkey Skin.
Among his best-known later roles, Perrin played the adult filmmaker Salvatore reflecting on his childhood in the Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso.Perrin was also co-producer of some 15 films, including Z (1969), which won Oscars for best foreign picture and best film editing, and The Chorus (2004), directed by his nephew Christophe Barratier. (RTE)