Gérard Oury

Gérard Oury (; born Max-Gérard Houry Tenenbaum; 29 April 1919 – 20 July 2006) was a French film director, actor and writer. He is best known for a number of comedies he directed and co-wrote between the 1960s and 1980s, most notably The Sucker, Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (1966), The Brain (1969), The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973), and Ace of Aces (1982).

Life and career Max-Gérard Houry-Tenenbaum was the only son of Serge Tenenbaum, a violinist of Russian-Jewish origin, and French Jewish Marcelle Houry, a journalist and art critic. Tenenbaum was absent from the life of Oury and he was raised in an unobservant house of his mother and maternal grandmother Berthe Goldner. Oury studied at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and then at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art. He became a member of the Comédie-Française before World War II, but fled with all his family (mother, grandmother and unofficial wife, actress ) to Switzerland to escape the anti-Jewish persecutions by the Vichy government. When in 1942 his daughter Danièle Thompson was born, his fatherhood was concealed, to avoid her classification as a Jew. The following year, Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (La Grande Vadrouille) was even more successful, attracting the largest audiences ever in France (17.27 million admissions). This box-office record stood for decades, only surpassed in 1997 by Titanic from James Cameron.

Oury shot the 1969 comedy Le Cerveau (The Brain) in English, starring David Niven in the lead role as a criminal mastermind.

With actress Jacqueline Roman, he was the father of French writer Danièle Thompson and grandfather of actor/writer Christopher Thompson. He lived together with the French actress Michèle Morgan for the second half of his life. He died aged 87 in Saint-Tropez on 20 July 2006.

Filmography Year Title Director Writer 1958 Le Miroir à deux faces 1960 Come Dance with Me! 1961 1962 Crime Does Not Pay 1965 The Sucker 1966 La Grande Vadrouille 1969 The Brain 1971 Delusions of Grandeur 1973 The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob 1978 La Carapate 1980 The Umbrella Coup 1982 The Ace of Aces / The Super Ace 1984 La vengeance du serpent à plumes 1987 1993 La Soif de l'or 1996 1999 Le schpountz

Actor