Trivia

Novelist and actor

Soon after arriving in London in 1940 he joined the Section Française of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Working under Michel Saint-Denis and using the pseudonym Jacques Borel, he wrote and acted in radio programs such as "Les français parlent aux français" destined for listeners in occupied France.

Was committed to the ideal of making literature available across national and linguistic boundaries.

Studied as a boy at the Lyceé Chaptal and the Ecole Centrale before entering the Ecole Aeronautique et d'Automobile, which he left before graduation to pursue a career in the cinema as a critic, technician, actor, and director. Became assistant to directors René Clair and Jean Renoir. Turned to acting. Latterly resident in Britain, longtime employee of the BBC. Also general correspondent for the French literary revue Fontaine, contributor of articles on cinema to La Revue du Cinéma and L'Ecran français. Member of surrealist groups in both France and in England.

One of Brunius' hobbies was collecting early pre-cinematographic equipment and articles. And he was instrumental in helping the French Cinematheque purchase the huge collection of such artifacts from a British collector, Will Day.

His first wife was the sister of photographer Denise Bellon with whom he worked. He is thus the uncle of Yannick Bellon and Loleh Bellon. He is the brother of Simone Cottance.

Friend from high school of Jean George Auriol and Edmond T. Gréville and later of Jean-Paul Le Chanois and the Prévert brothers.

He died on the eve of a surrealist art exhibition in Exeter in which he was also a speaker.

He did translation English to French or French to English of plays, He also directed some of these adaptations in Brussels.

A fervent opponent of the French "Nouvelle Vague" cinema of the early 1960s, although he greatly admired Alain Resnais and described his film "Last Year In Marienbad" as "the greatest film ever made".

For forty years, a keen adherent to the Surrealist Movement, and a close friend of the director Luis Bunuel, whose assistant he was on the latter's earliest films.