Frédéric Dard

Frédéric Charles Antoine Dard (29 June 1921, in Bourgoin-Jallieu, Isère, France – 6 June 2000, in Bonnefontaine, Fribourg, Switzerland) ) also known under the pen name San-Antonio, was a French writer. Known as an author of crime fiction and as a humorist, he was noted for his ability to blend the two genres. Though Dard also wrote serious fiction, his most successful books used a farcical tone.

During his lifetime, Dard was the best-selling French-language author in the World. He wrote more than four hundred novels, including the San-Antonio book series, dozens of plays and several screenplays, under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms. Dard used San-Antonio both as his most famous pen name and as the name of the titular hero of his main series. The San-Antonio books eventually became so popular that Dard started using that pen name also for books that did not belong to the series.

Dard was best known for his raunchy humor and his inventive use of the French language, notably French slang.

Biography Early life Frédéric Dard was born to a working-class family: his father was a metalworker and his mother was employed in a bakery. He first grew up in Saint-Chef before settling in Lyon, where he was mostly raised by his grandmother as his parents faced financial difficulties and his father struggled with alcoholism.

Dard started writing stories during his childhood, with the encouragement of his grandmother. While in high school, he began an apprenticeship in commerce but had little interest in his studies and took refuge in reading. He showed a preference for genre fiction, notably the hardboiled American-style crime novels of British authors Peter Cheyney and James Hadley Chase.

Career While still a teenager, Dard had the opportunity to meet Lyon author Marcel E. Grancher who gave him his first job as a journalist. Dard published his first novel, La Peuchère, in 1940. That same year, he won his first literary award, the prix Lugdunum, for his book Monsieur Joos. Dard left Lyon for the Parisian region with his family, settling in Les Mureaux in 1948. To earn a living, he produced all sort of writings assignments.

In 1949, Dard wrote the crime novel Réglez-lui son compte ! which would become the first volume of his San-Antonio series: he found the name of his protagonist by looking randomly at a map of the United States, eventually choosing the name of the city in Texas. The book sold poorly but it was bought by Armand de Caro, who headed Fleuve Noir, France's leading publishing house of genre fiction. De Caro saw potential in the book and took Dard under contract.

Throughout the 1950s, Dard's crime novels enjoyed increasing success, eventually making him France's most popular author. Dard also wrote over 30 plays, including some based on his own books and others based on the works of other authors, as well as radio dramas and several screenplays. In 1960, he directed the film Une gueule comme la mienne, based on one of his own novels.

While Dard wrote serious crime fiction under his own name, notably winning the 1957 Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for his book Le Bourreau pleure (The Executioner Weeps), his San-Antonio novels were known for their humor, which became more and more extravagant over time as the series evolved into satire, then outright parody. The series' titular protagonist is Commissioner (Detective Superintendent) Antoine San-Antonio, a handsome, dashing and womanizing police officer working for the French secret service.

At the height of Dard's popularity, each volume of his San-Antonio series sold about 600 000 copies in France, with some selling as much as one million copies. Also starting in the late 1970s, he published non-genre fiction, humorous essays and more elaborate novels that were critically well-received.

Personal life Dard was first married to Odette Demaison, with whom he had two children, Patrice (b.1944) who also became an author, and Elisabeth (1948-2011).

Dard acknowledged that he suffered from depressive episodes

Death and legacy

Dard died on June 6, 2000. The last San-Antonio book, which had been written with his son Patrice, was published posthumously. After Dard's death, Patrice continued the San-Antonio series and feature films.

The films based on the San-Antonio series are Sale temps pour les mouches (1966) and Béru et ces dames (1968), both directed by Guy Lefranc and starring Gérard Barray as San-Antonio and Jean Richard as Bérurier; San-Antonio ne pense qu'à ça (1980), directed by Joël Séria with Philippe Gasté as San-Antonio and Pierre Doris as Bérurier; and San-Antonio (2004), directed by Frédéric Auburtin with Gérard Lanvin in the title role and Gérard Depardieu as Bérurier.

Films based on Dard's other works include Les Salauds vont en enfer (The Wicked go to Hell, 1955) and Toi, le venin (Nude in a White Car, 1958), both directed by Robert Hossein, The Old Lady Who Walked in the Sea (1991) directed by Laurent Heynemann, as well as Y a-t-il un Français dans la salle ? (1982) and Le Mari de Léon (1992), both directed by Jean-Pierre Mocky.

As a writer, Dard is recognized for his linguistic inventiveness, which has been the subject of scholarly analyses. In many of his books, he used colorful slang and word plays, A Dictionnaire San-Antonio (San-Antonio Dictionary) was published in 1993, listing 15,000 words invented by him.