Jean-Pierre Cassel

At least, that's what the press releases claimed; actually, the tall, elastic-faced Cassel had been plugging away in films on a minor basis since 1950.

He made his movie debut at the invitation of Gene Kelly, who cast Cassel in the 1956 Paris-filmed seriocomedy The Happy Road (1957).

Shortly after, Cassel was perfectly cast in the naif title role in the 1958 film version of Voltaire's Candide. He has since been a stalwart in the comedies of director Philippe de Broca, nearly always playing latter-day variations of the ingenuous Candide. Since this time, he is the screen-lover of some of the best actresses like Jean Seberg, Brigitte Bardot, Claude Jade, Catherine Deneuve, Stéphane Audran or Marie Dubois.

Being good friends with Serge Gainsbourg for decades, he climbed back on stage at the age of 74 for a retrospective called "Jean-Pierre Cassel chante et danse Gainsbourg Suite", which featured three unpublished songs from the 1960s (2006).

Has played both "d'Artagnan the Musketeer" and "Cyrano de Bergerac". In neither role, however, was he appearing in an adaptation of a literary work in which that character appears. In Cyrano et d'Artagnan (1964), he played "d'Artagnan". That film was not based on any of Alexandre Dumas's novels, or on the play "Cyrano de Bergerac", which featured a cameo by "d'Artagnan". In The Return of the Musketeers (1989), he played "Cyrano", but Cyrano does not appear in any of Dumas's novels.

He played in Gérard Brach's The Boat on the Grass (1971) (1970) with Claude Jade and John McEnery.

Was originally scheduled to appear with his son, Vincent Cassel, in Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 (2008), before his deadly cancer disease in 2007. They previously appeared together in The Crimson Rivers (2000), Valse nocturne (1995) and Café au lait (1993).