Bourvil

At the age of three, André Zacharie Raimbourg and his family moved to a town in the region of Normandy called Bourville. He finished school at the age of 15 and began to work as a baker. He was already playing harmonica, mandoline and cornet when he engaged himself in a village band. In the beginning of 1940 while in the army making music-hall show for the troops, he changed his name into Andrel like his idol Fernandel from whom he was singing the songs.

He began to write his own songs, making a name by himself, and so in 1942 took a new name, further from "Fernandel": Bourvil(le). He was recognized as a stand-up comic, dressed as a farmer grown too fast for the shirt he wears, hair coming down on his forehead, a simple minded but crafty naive. At the end of the war the radio extended his fame. His first parts on the screen were based only on this character.

In 1952, he wrote in collaboration with Maurice Vandair the lyrics of the French song "En Nourrice" with the music of Henri Betti.

He was to play in the movie Delusions of Grandeur (1971) directed by Gérard Oury but he died a few months before the beginning of the shooting. He was replaced by Yves Montand.

July-August 2017- Subject of an exhibition for the hundred years of his birth in Fontaine-le-Dun, Normandy, the regional town where he played the cornet in the municipal band. The hall where the exhibition is happening bears his real name.