Jacques Charrier(I)

French stage and screen actor, painter and ceramicist. The son of a professional soldier, Charrier was one of seven siblings. Of an artistic disposition early on, he attended Strasbourg's Haute école des arts du Rhin (School of Decorative Arts) in 1953 to study ceramics. Three years later, he trained for acting at the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre (ENSATT) in Paris under the tutelage of actress Berthe Bovy. His career as a performer began after he was first employed as an extra at the Comédie-Française. This eventually led to Charrier being cast in a key role in Le Journal d'Anne Frank (The Diary of Anne Frank) at the Théâtre Montparnasse. His performance impressed the director Marcel Carné who offered him the lead role in his film Les tricheurs (1958), starring alongside Pascale Petit, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Laurent Terzieff.

This proved to be the high point of Charrier's acting career, though he has appeared in other films by noted directors, including Babette s'en va-t-en guerre (1959) (Christian-Jaque), L'OEil du malin (1962) (Claude Chabrol) and Françoise ou La vie conjugale (1964) (André Cayatte). He famously turned down the offer to star in the hit movie Plein soleil (1960), based on the novel 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' by Patricia Highsmith. The coveted role went to Alain Delon instead.

In 1969, he co-founded (with Jean-Claude Brialy) a production company specializing in low budget films. The venture was not a success, however, and the company ceased production in 1975. Afterwards, Charriere moved away from show business and returned to his original muse. After continuing studies at the Beaux-Arts de Paris grande école in 1980, he committed himself to being a full-time painter and has since been exhibiting his work at art houses ranging from Paris and Geneva to San Francisco.

Charrier has been married four times. His first wife (from 1959 to 1962) was the actress Brigitte Bardot. His current wife is the Japanese artist and photographer Makiko Kumano.