Michel Charrel

Michel Charrel — Biography

French character actor Michel Charrel turned up regularly in supporting parts from the 1960s onward. Across a career of roughly fifty years he appeared in close to fifty films, from crime stories to comedies. Despite the long list of credits, his name is mostly linked with productions such as Fantômas, Belle de Jour and Murmur of the Heart.

He grew up in a family that ran grocery stores and earned his baccalaureate at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques. His first sizeable roles came in the 1960s, in films such as Landru, The Train, Fantômas, The Vampire of Düsseldorf and The Gardener of Argenteuil. In 1967 he appeared in Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour, followed by The Unfaithful Wife, This Man Must Die and Le Pacha. In the 1970s he kept working in films like Murmur of the Heart, Chinese in Paris, Flic Story, The Good and the Bad and Surprise Sock.

Later he worked less often but never stopped: Gandahar (1987), Le Brasier (1991), Regular Lovers (2005), Irreplaceable (2016), De plus belle (2017) and The Salt of Tears (2020) belong to those years. He also appeared in several films by Philippe Garrel, Regular Lovers among them. Besides acting he published books, among them L'Album and Le hameau du Rossignol. He died on 14 February 2026, aged 89, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.