François Jean Blanche, known as "Francis Blanche" (20 July 1921 – 6 July 1974) was a French actor, singer, humorist and author. He was a very popular figure on stage, radio and in films, during the 1950s and 1960s. His two daughters, Barbara & Dominique, are artists with their studios in Eze. Blanche was born in an artistic family, mainly of stage actors—including his father Louis Blanche and his uncle, Emmanuel Blanche, who was a painter—. He completed his secondary schooling at fourteen, the youngest in France to do so at the time. In the 1940s and 1950s, Blanche was part of Robert Dhéry's theatrical company Les Branquignols, with whom he played in the film Ah! Les belles bacchantes, starring Robert Dhéry, Colette Brosset (Dhéry's then-wife), and Louis de Funès; directed by Jean Loubignac in 1954. Blanche teamed up with Pierre Dac to form a comic duo best remembered for Le Sâr Rabindranath Duval, a sketch about a phony and nonsensical Indian clairvoyant and guru (1957). They also created a popular and equally nonsensical radiophonic series, loosely based on a highly improbable espionage and conspiration plot, Malheur aux barbus, which was broadcast on Paris Inter in 213 episodes from 1951 to 1952. The same plot and characters were revived on Europe 1 in a series called Signé Furax, enjoying no less than 1,034 daily episodes between 1956 and 1960. Both broadcasts were phenomenal audience successes in the pre-television era. Blanche was also renowned for broadcasting phone pranks, in which he entertained listeners by making the most improbable situations sound plausible. He wrote poems, and the lyrics of 673 songs. On stage, he acted in Tartuffe and Néron and, in 1955, Chevalier du Ciel, an operetta by Luis Mariano at the Gaîté-Lyrique theatre. Blanche also enjoyed a successful cinematographic career, both as an actor and scriptwriter. He appeared as a hard-headed German colonel ("Obersturmführer Schulz") opposite Brigitte Bardot in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre (1959). He was one of the favourite actors of French filmmaker Georges Lautner, and played Maître Folace (a shady solicitor counselling a colourful gangster mob) in Les Tontons flingueurs (1963). Blanche also appeared in Boris Vassilief's Les Barbouzes (1964). He delighted in parodying classical music, adapting famous works such as Schubert's "Die Forelle" (The Trout) into a crazy and slightly risqué piece about a 16-year-old romantic girl obsessed with Schubert's song to the point of giving birth to a live trout while performing it on her piano. Similarly, he turned Beethoven's 5th Symphony into a lengthy and quite repetitive musical glorification of the clothes peg and its fictitious inventor, Jérémie-Victor Opdebec. Blanche died at the age of 52, from a heart attack with a background of untreated Type 1 diabetes. He is buried in Èze cemetery. Source: Article "Francis Blanche" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
120 movies · 6 shows
Les 100 vies de Francis Blanche
2022·0.0
Pierre Dac et Francis Blanche : Le Meilleur du Parti d'en Rire
2020·8.0
Comiques de toujours (Vol. 1 à 4)
2009·6.0
A Whale That Had a Toothache
1975·6.7
No Pockets in a Shroud
1974·5.4
Say it with Flowers
1974·5.7
France, Incorporated
1974·4.1
OK Patron
1974·5.7
By the Blood of Others
1974·5.2
La Dernière Bourrée à Paris
1973·5.5
The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot
1973·4.9
Le Solitaire
1973·6.5
Racconti romani di una ex-novizia
1973·3.7
I. You. They.
1973·4.5
I've Had It
1973·6.0
The Terror with Cross-Eyes
1972·10.0
The Eroticist
1972·5.6
Scandal Man
1972·6.5
La Grande Maffia
1971·6.0
Il furto è l'anima del commercio!?...
1971·5.2
Qu'est-ce qui fait courir les crocodiles ?
1971·7.3
Les Jambes en l'air
1971·4.5
Are You Engaged to a Greek Sailor or an Airline Pilot?
1971·4.2
The Great Java
1971·6.0
Alice au pays des merveilles
1970·6.3
Ces messieurs de la gâchette
1970·4.1
Adieu Berthe
1970·0.0
The Stud
1970·4.9
Poussez pas grand-père dans les cactus
1969·5.0
Un merveilleux parfum d'oseille
1969·6.0
Aux frais de la princesse
1969·5.0
Erotissimo
1969·5.7
Le bourgeois gentil mec
1969·5.0
Les gros malins
1969·5.0
Faites donc plaisir aux amis
1969·6.3
The Big Wash
1968·5.9
Salut Berthe !
1968·4.9
The Men in the Family
1968·5.1
Rita the Field Marshal
1967·5.2
Loose in the Trigger
1967·5.8
The Great Gadget
1967·5.3
Belle de Jour
1967·7.3
Le canard en fer blanc
1967·5.4
The Oldest Profession
1967·5.0
Deux Romains en Gaule
1967·7.0
Order of the Daisy
1967·6.2
The Big Grasshopper
1967·6.3
Les enquiquineurs
1966·5.5
Les malabars sont au parfum
1966·4.5
The Sleeping Sentinel
1966·5.3
Under Your Hat
1965·4.0
Pas de caviar pour tante Olga
1965·9.0
The Real Bargain
1965·4.0
Les baratineurs
1965·5.0
Les Gorilles
1964·6.4
The Great Spy Chase
1964·6.8
Chance at Love
1964·6.5
The Big Scare
1964·5.8
Les Pieds nickelés
1964·6.2
Male Hunt
1964·6.5
Champagne for Savages
1964·6.3
The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers
1964·5.4
Clémentine chérie
1964·6.2
Requiem pour un caïd
1964·6.3
Jaloux comme un tigre
1964·4.7
Dandelions by the Roots
1964·5.4
Actualités télérévisées
1964·0.0
The Black Tulip
1964·6.3
L'échelle
1964·0.0
Les Gros Bras
1963·3.8
Crooks in Clover
1963·7.7
Sweet and Sour
1963·5.1
Thank Heaven for Small Favors
1963·6.6
The Virgins
1963·4.8
People in Luck
1963·5.5
The Abominable Man of Customs
1963·5.4
Who Stole the Body?
1963·7.0
Tartarin de Tarascon
1962·5.3
The Hideout
1962·7.0
Snobs!
1962·6.0
Accroche-toi, y'a du vent!
1962·10.0
The Seventh Juror
1962·6.8
The Vendetta
1962·5.8
Hitch-Hike
1962·6.1
Operation Gold Ingot
1962·7.0
Romulus and the Sabines
1961·5.3
The Girl of a Thousand Months
1961·5.5
House of Sin
1961·5.5
Les Livreurs
1961·8.0
Long Live Henry IV... Long Live Love!
1961·5.6
The Bear
1960·7.0
Little Girls and High Finance
1960·7.7
Le Olimpiadi dei mariti
1960·6.8
We Like It Cold
1960·7.2
Love and the Frenchwoman
1960·4.9
Le pillole di Ercole
1960·7.0
Easy Come Easy Go
1960·7.0
Long Live the Duke!
1960·8.0
Some Like It... Cold
1960·5.6
Match contre la mort
1959·8.0
The Green Mare
1959·5.6
Babette Goes to War
1959·5.6
Too Late to Love
1959·5.8
The Indestructible
1959·7.0
The Motorcycle Cops
1959·5.5
Toto in Paris
1958·6.3
The Little Professor
1958·3.9
A Dog, A Mouse and a Sputnik
1958·5.0
Anyone Can Kill Me
1957·6.2
La Polka des menottes
1957·6.8
Honoré de Marseille
1956·6.3
Life is beautiful
1956·6.3
Peek-a-boo
1954·5.0
Trust Me!
1954·6.2
Midnight... Quai de Bercy
1953·7.3
Good Enough to Eat
1951·6.8
Ils ont vingt ans
1950·10.0
The Sad Sack
1950·9.0
The Killer is Listening
1948·4.5
Frédérica
1942·5.5