# Gérard Oury

Gérard Oury (French pronunciation:; born Max-Gérard Houry Tannenbaum; 29 April 1919 – 20 July 2006) was a French film director, actor and writer.

## Life and career

Max-Gérard Houry-Tannenbaum was the only son of Serge Tannenbaum, a violinist of Russian-Jewish origin, and French Jewish Marcelle Houry, a journalist and art critic. Tannenbaum was absent from the life of Oury and he was raised in an unobservant house of his mother and maternal grandmother Berthe Goldner. Oury studied at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and then at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art. He became a member of the Comédie-Française before World War II, but fled with all his family (mother, grandmother and unofficial wife, actress Jacqueline Roman [fr]) to Switzerland to escape the anti-Jewish persecutions by the Vichy government. When in 1942 his daughter Danièle Thompson was born, his fatherhood was concealed, to avoid her classification as a Jew.
After 1945 he returned to the liberated Paris and restarted his career as an actor, performing in the theatre and in supporting roles in the cinema. Oury became a movie director in 1959 (The Itchy Palm [fr]) and gained his first success in 1961 with Crime Does Not Pay (Le crime ne paie pas).
Pairing André Bourvil and Louis de Funès as a comic duo, he burst into commercial filmmaking with 1965's The Sucker (Le corniaud). The film was entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival. The following year, Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (La Grande Vadrouille) was even more successful, attracting the largest audiences ever in France (17.27 million admissions). This box-office record stood for decades, only surpassed in 1997 by Titanic from James Cameron.
Oury shot the 1969 comedy Le Cerveau (The Brain) in English, starring David Niven in the lead role as a criminal mastermind.
With actress Jacqueline Roman, he was the father of French writer Danièle Thompson and grandfather of actor/writer Christopher Thompson. He lived together with the French actress Michèle Morgan for the second half of his life. He died aged 87 in Saint-Tropez on 20 July 2006.

## Filmography

Actor :
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Notes |
| 1942 | Les Petits Riens | Philinte | Raymond Leboursier | |
| 1947 | Antoine and Antoinette | a customer | Jacques Becker | |
| 1949 | Jo la Romance | Roland Grenier | Gilles Grangier | |
| 1949 | Du Guesclin | Charles V of France | Bernard Delatour | |
| 1950 | La Souricière | Petit rôle | Henri Calef | Uncredited |
| 1949 | La Belle que voilà | Bruno | Jean-Paul Le Chanois | |
| 1951 | Without Leaving an Address | a journalist | Jean-Paul Le Chanois | |
| 1951 | Mr. Peek-a-Boo | Maurice | Jean Boyer | |
| 1951 | The Night Is My Kingdom | Lionel Moreau | Georges Lacombe | |
| 1952 | Le Costaud des Batignolles | Récitant / Narrator | Guy Lacourt | Voice |
| 1953 | Endless Horizons | | Jean Dréville | Voice |
| 1953 | Sea Devils | Napoleon | Raoul Walsh | |
| 1953 | The Sword and the Rose | the Dauphin | Ken Annakin | |
| 1953 | The Heart of the Matter | Yusef | George More O'Ferrall | |
| 1954 | They Who Dare | Captain George Two | Lewis Milestone | |
| 1954 | Father Brown | Inspector Dubois | Robert Hamer | |
| 1954 | Loves of Three Queens | Napoleon Bonaparte | Marc Allégret and Edgar G. Ulmer | (segment: Napoleon and Josephine) |
| 1954 | The River Girl | Enzo Cinti | Mario Soldati | |
| 1954 | I cavalieri dell'illusione | Napoleone Bonaparte | Marc Allégret | |
| 1955 | The Heroes Are Tired | Villeterre | Yves Ciampi | |
| 1956 | La Meilleure Part | Gérard Bailly - un ingénieur | Yves Allégret | |
| 1956 | House of Secrets | Julius Pindar | Guy Green | |
| 1957 | Méfiez-vous fillettes | Marcel Palmer | Yves Allégret | |
| 1958 | Le Septième Ciel | Maurice Portal | Raymond Bernard | |
| 1958 | Back to the Wall | Jacques Decrey | Édouard Molinaro | |
| 1958 | Le Miroir à deux faces | Doctor Bosc | André Cayatte | |
| 1959 | The Journey | Teklel Hafouli | Anatole Litvak | |
| 1960 | La Main chaude | Cameo Appearance | Gérard Oury | Uncredited |
| 1961 | The Menace | Le docteur | Gérard Oury | |
| 1963 | The Prize | Doctor Claude Marceau | Mark Robson | |
| 1986 | A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later | Un spectateur de '40 ans déjà' | Claude Lelouch | Uncredited |
| 2003 | Là-haut, un roi au-dessus des nuages | Le général de La Motte-Noire | Pierre Schoendoerffer | (final film role) |
| Director ||||
| Year | Title | Cast | Notes |
| 1960 | La Main chaude [fr] | with Jacques Charrier and Macha Méril | also credited as writer |
| 1961 | La Menace [fr] | with Robert Hossein and Marie-José Nat | |
| 1962 | Crime Does Not Pay | Danielle Darrieux, Michèle Morgan, Edwige Feuillère, Gino Cervi, Gabriele Ferzetti, Annie Girardot, Pierre Brasseur, and others | also credited as writer |
| 1965 | The Sucker | starring Bourvil and Louis de Funès | also credited as writer |
| 1966 | La Grande Vadrouille | starring Bourvil, Louis de Funès and Terry-Thomas | also credited as writer |
| 1969 | The Brain | Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bourvil, David Niven, Eli Wallach and others | also credited as writer |
| 1971 | Delusions of Grandeur | starring Louis de Funès and Yves Montand | also credited as writer |
| 1973 | The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob | starring Louis de Funès | also credited as writer |
| 1978 | La Carapate | starring Pierre Richard | also credited as writer |
| 1980 | The Umbrella Coup | starring Pierre Richard | also credited as writer |
| 1982 | The Ace of Aces / The Super Ace | starring Jean-Paul Belmondo | also credited as writer |
| 1984 | La vengeance du serpent à plumes | starring Coluche, and Josiane Balasko | also credited as writer |
| 1987 | Lévy et Goliath [fr] | with Richard Anconina, and Michel Boujenah | also credited as writer |
| 1993 | La Soif de l'or | with Tsilla Chelton, Catherine Jacob, Christian Clavier and others | also credited as writer |
| 1996 | Fantôme avec chauffeur [fr] | with Philippe Noiret, and Gérard Jugnot | |
| 1999 | Le schpountz | with Smaïn, Sabine Azéma and others | also credited as writer |
| Writer only ||||
| Year | Title | Cast | Notes |
| 1960 | Come Dance with Me! | starring Brigitte Bardot | adaptation |
| 1996 | The Mirror Has Two Faces | with Barbra Streisand, Jeff Bridges, Pierce Brosnan and others | Remake of Le Miroir à deux faces (1958) |