Robert Hossein

Acting

Born Dec 30, 1927

From Paris, France

Died Dec 31, 2020

Robert Hossein was a French film actor of Parsi origin, director and writer. He directed the 1982 adaption of Les Misérables, and appeared in Vice and Virtue, Le Casse, Les Uns et les Autres and Venus Beauty Institute. His most recent roles include starring as Michèle Mercier's husband in the Angélique series and as a Catholic priest who falls in love with Claude Jade and becomes a communist in Prêtres interdits (Forbidden Priests) in 1973. Hossein started directing films in 1956 with Les salauds vont en enfer from a story by Frédéric Dard whose novels and plays went on to furnish Hossein with much of his later film material. Right from the start Hossein established his characteristic trademarks: using a seemingly straightforward suspense plot and subverting its conventions (sometimes to the extent of a complete disregard of the traditional demand for a final twist or revelation) in order to concentrate on ritualistic relationships. This is the director's running preoccupation which is always stressed in his films by an extraordinary command of film space and often striking frame compositions where the geometry of human figures and set design is used to accentuate the psychological set-up of the scene. The mechanisms of guilt and the way it destroys relationships is another recurring theme, presumably influenced by Hossein's lifelong interest in the works of Dostoyevski. Although Hossein had some modest international successes with films like Toi, le venin and Le vampire de Dusseldorf, he was much singled out for scorching criticism by the critics and followers of the New Wave for the unashamedly melodramatic frameworks of his films. The fact that he was essentially an auteur director with a consistent set of themes and an extraordinary mastery of original and unusual approaches to staging his stories, was never appreciated. He was not averse to trying his hand at widely different genres and was never defeated, making the strikingly different spaghetti western Une corde, un Colt and the low-budgeted but daringly subversive period drama J'ai tué Raspoutine. However, because of the lack of wider success and continuing adverse criticism, Hossein virtually ended his film directing career in 1970, having concentrated on theatre where his achievements were never questioned, and subsequently returning to film directing only twice. With two or three exceptions, his films remain commercially unavailable and very difficult to see. He is the son of André Hossein a Zoroastrian French composer of Azerbaijani-Tajik descent, and a Jewish comedy actress from Kiev. He was married three times: first to Marina Vlady (he has two sons with her, Pierre and Igor), later to Caroline Eliacheff (with whom he has a son, Nicholas). He is currently married to actress Candice Patou, with whom he has one son, Julien. According to an article written by Emannuel Peze, Hossein experienced a conversion to Catholicism in 1971 during a visit to the Marian apparition at San Damiano in Lombardo Italy. Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Hossein, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Robert Hossein

Known For

The Professional

Angelique

Rififi

Angelique and the Sultan

Bolero

Les Miserables

The Burglars

Venus Beauty Institute

The Wax Mask

The Big Pardon

Filmography — Acting

The Professional

Angelique

Rififi

Angelique and the Sultan

Bolero

Les Miserables

The Burglars

Venus Beauty Institute

The Wax Mask

The Big Pardon

Angelique and the King

Untamable Angelique

The Battle of El Alamein

Don Juan or If Don Juan Were a Woman

A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later

The Dirty Game

Vice and Virtue

Cemetery Without Crosses

The Conspirators

OSS 117 Murder for Sale

Love Is Better Than Life

Lamiel

OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok

Hellé

Stars Meet in Moscow

Love on a Pillow

San Antonio

Belmondo by Belmondo

Aznavour by Charles

The Scarlet Lady

Madame

Trivial

Marco the Magnificent

Tender Moment

Desert Assault

Belmondo: The Incorrigible

Of Flesh and Blood

Belmondo, il était une fois le beau monde

Belmondo, itinéraire...

The Other Truth

The Game of Truth

Enough Rope

Paris Pick-Up

Série noire

The Wicked Go to Hell

Take Me As I Am

Judge Roy Bean

Le commissaire mène l’enquête

Stranger in the House

Maya

Children of Chaos

Crime and Punishment

Time of the Wolves

God's Thunder

In the Eyes of Memory

Hitch-Hike

Death of a Killer

The Lion's Share

Misdeal

Brigade Anti Gangs

L'Affaire

Marked Eyes

The Vampire of Dusseldorf

The Devil Who Limped

Surprise-party

A Police Officer Without Importance

Double Agents