Pierre Asso

Cinema has not been too good to the actor Pierre Asso. A fistful of fleshy roles: Tamise in Marcel Pagnol's 1936 version of "Topaze", the monk Pablo in Louis Daquin's "Patrie" (1945), the blackmailer in Julien Duvivier's "L'affaire Maurizius (1954), Trintignant's disturbing ringleader in Alain Cavalier's "Le combat dans l'île" (1961) and that's about all. The rest consists of a few minor forgettable supporting roles. Fortunately the actor was more favored in other fields namely, theatre, television and film dubbing (he was notably the French voice of Leslie Howard in "Gone With the Wind"). Aged 16, wishing to work in the theatre, Pierre Asso moved to Paris in the mid 1920s. Although he did not become a big name, he had a successful career there, lasting half a century. He was seen and heard in plays by Pirandello, Kleist, Ibsen, Beckett, Wilde, Claudel, Shakespeare, Molière, Corneille under the supervision of such important stage directors as Antonin Artaud, Jean Vilar, Jean Mercure, Patrice Chéreau. But it was television that gave him greater visibility, in episodes of prestigious programmes like "La Caméra explore le temps", "En votre âme et conscience", "Énigmes de l'histoire", performed live, where he proved a marvel. His long, slightly stooped figure and intimidating gaze became more and more familiar to viewers throughout the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, he played several historical figures, Talleyrand, Voltaire (in « L'affaire Calas ») and others. But he one that fitted him like a glove was Richelieu. His stunning physical resemblance with the cardinal gave him the opportunity to embody him on four occasions, including in a 1960 version of "The Three Musketeers" starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. Quite often cold, haughty and domineering, he proved he could prove moving on occasion, as in "Mon coeur est dans les Highlands", the film by Lazare Iglésis after William Saroyan. He was just wonderful as the aged and bearded Jasper Mac Gregor, a destitute actor who had escaped from an old people's home and knew how to make everyone around him love him. In life Pierre Asso was an anarchist, and his ideas, which he proclaimed unabashedly, often got him into trouble: he was banned from the stage on four occasions. He even remained unemployed for nineteen months on the run. But he persisted and signed. A man of conviction, he lived in a hotel, sparingly (and not beyond his means as Wikipedia erroneously states). Pierre Asso worked until the end, which came all too soon