François Chaumette(1923-1996)
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Very effective as the villain of the piece, the faithless Philippe de
Gonzague, in André Hunebelle's entertaining version of Paul Féval's 'Le
Bossu' (1959), François Chaumette worked wonders with his cruel look,
his predatory smile and his coldly threatening manner. Unfortunately
this brilliant thespian did not often appear on the big screen
afterward. Indeed after making the respectable number of eleven films
between 1957 and 1961, he would only appear in sixteen others until his
death from cancer in 1996, among which shorts, unreleased feature films
and one segment of 'Parano' in 1994. In spite of everything, François
Chaumette did manage to land a few interesting roles in works by Robbe
Grillet, Sautet and Zulawski. The reason why Chaumette worked so little
for the cinema is simply due to the success he met at the theater in a
long career that spanned five decades, from 1943 when he debuted in
Giraudoux's 'Sodome et Gomorrhe' until his demise. He was also a
fixture of French television where he appeared in filmed plays,
serials, TV movies and historical dramas, including Claude Barma's
famous series 'Belphégor' in which he shone as the arch villain (what
else?) Boris Williams.
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