Henri Crémieux

Henri Crémieux — Biography

Henri Crémieux was one of the familiar faces of French supporting casts. Over a career from 1930 to 1980 he appeared in more than a hundred films, most often as secondary figures such as judges, doctors and lawyers. Besides acting on stage and screen he also worked as a screenwriter. The Marseille-born actor died in 1980.

In his early screen years he appeared in productions such as Gibraltar and Hercule (both 1938), and after the war in François Villon (1945) and The Temptation of Barbizon (1946), where he played the lawyer. In 1950 he played the publisher in Jean Cocteau's Orfe, and he returned to Cocteau for Testament of Orpheus (1960). Among his notable parts of the 1950s were Professor Larmet in The Innocent with Forty Children (1957) and Monsieur Raymond in Give Me My Chance (1957). In the 1960s he turned up in films such as The President (1961) and Assassin in the Phonebook (1962), and in Four Queens for an Ace (1966) he was Marvier, the secret service chief.

In the last two decades of his career he worked with Jacques Demy: Subtil Dutrouz in The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and the head of the doctors in Peau d'Âne (1970). He played the psychiatrist Professor Richet in Love Me Strangely (1971) and the grandfather Roussel in Heart to Heart (1979); Au bout du bout du banc (1979) is among the films of his final years.