Robert Le Vigan

Robert Le Vigan (7 January 1900 – 12 October 1972) was a French actor. Born Robert-Charles-Alexandre Coquillaud in Paris, he appeared in more than 60 films between 1931 and 1943 almost exclusively in small or supporting roles. He was, according to film academic Ginette Vincendeau, a "brilliant, extravagant actor" who "specialised in louche, menacing or diabolical characters".^[1] A collaborator with the Nazis during the occupation, who openly expressed fascist attitudes,^[2] he vanished while playing Jéricho in Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis), a film deliberately released in May 1945 shortly after the liberation of Europe; Le Vigan was replaced by Pierre Renoir. He was sentenced to forced labour for ten years in 1946. Released on parole after three years working in a camp, Le Vigan absconded to Spain, and then Argentina, dying there October 12, 1972, in the city of Tandil.^[1] He died in poverty.

Selected filmography

• The Tunnel (1933)
• Madame Bovary (1934)
• Street Without a Name (1934)
• Golgotha (1935) playing Christ; known as Behold the Man in English
• The Lower Depths (1936)
• The Citadel of Silence (1937)
• The Man from Nowhere (1937)
• Harvest (Regain) (1937)
• Le Quai des brumes (1938)
• Tempête sur l'Asie (1938)
• The Little Thing (1938)
• Le Dernier Tournant (1939)
• Louise (1939)
• The Fatted Calf (1939)
• Who Killed Santa Claus? (1941)
• It Happened at the Inn (1943)
• The Orchid (1951)
• The King's Mail (1951)

References

1. Ginette Vincendeau (ed) Encyclopedia of European Cinema, London: Casell/BFI, 1995, p.262
2. Rémi Fournier Lanzoni French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present, New York and London: Continuum, 2002, p.139. According to Fournier Lanzoni, Le Vigan found exile in Argentina.

External links

• Robert Le Vigan at the Internet Movie Database