Alexandre Rignault

Alexandre Rignault (14 February 1901 – 2 April 1985) was a French actor. He appeared in more than a hundred films between 1931 and 1985.

Biography He was born on February 14, 1901 in Paris 5th, at his parents' home, rue Guy-de-La-Brosse. His father was a mechanic, and his mother was a housewife. In the mid-1920s, after having worked in various professions, he desired to become an actor. Attracted to the theater, he wrote to Louis Jouvet to offer his services. Jouvet received him and hired him to play the utility in his troupe. For about fifteen years, Rignault was cast in works by Nicolas Gogol, Marcel Achard and Jules Romains, and participated in the creation of three plays by Jean Giraudoux: Amphitryon 38 (1929), Intermezzo (1933), at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, and Ondine (1939) at the Théâtre de l'Athénée. After World War II, he was still seen in several plays, by Paul Claudel among others, presented at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier.

For his film debut in 1931, he played the art critic Langelard in Jean Renoir's La Chienne, a social drama with Janie Marèse and Michel Simon. Rignault, although he never had leading roles, happily played all sorts of jobs on screen: foreman, innkeeper, postman, policeman, doctor, gamekeeper, priest, notary, sharecropper, barker, peasant, etc.

He became known to the general public in 1937, playing King Henry VIII in Christian-Jaque's François Ier, starring Fernandel. From the end of the 1950s, Alexandre Rignault made frequent appearances on television. He played, among others, Count Robert de Clermont in Les Rois maudits (1972) by Claude Barma and the patriarch Gregor Kovalic in the Châteauvallon saga (1985), a role that closed his prolific career.

He is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery (25th division, large cemetery, 15 west, 6 north).

Selected filmography