Robert Hossein
Biography
Robert Hossein was a French film actor of Parsi origin, director and writer. He directed the 1982 adaption of Les Misérables, and appeared in Vice and Virtue, Le Casse, Les Uns et les Autres and Venus Beauty Institute. His most recent roles include starring as Michèle Mercier's husband in the Angélique series and as a Catholic priest who falls in love with Claude Jade and becomes a communist in Prêtres interdits (Forbidden Priests) in 1973. Hossein started directing films in 1956 with Les salauds vont en enfer from a story by Frédéric Dard whose novels and plays went on to furnish Hossein with much of his later film material. Right from the start Hossein established his characteristic trademarks: using a seemingly straightforward suspense plot and subverting its conventions (sometimes to the extent of a complete disregard of the traditional demand for a final twist or revelation) in order to concentrate on ritualistic relationships. This is the director's running preoccupation which is always stressed in his films by an extraordinary command of film space and often striking frame compositions where the geometry of human figures and set design is used to accentuate the psychological set-up of the scene. The mechanisms of guilt and the way it destroys relationships is another recurring theme, presumably influenced by Hossein's lifelong interest in the works of Dostoyevski. Although Hossein had some modest international successes with films like Toi, le venin and Le vampire de Dusseldorf, he was much singled out for scorching criticism by the critics and followers of the New Wave for the unashamedly melodramatic frameworks of his films. The fact that he was essentially an auteur director with a consistent set of themes and an extraordinary mastery of original and unusual approaches to staging his stories, was never appreciated. He was not averse to trying his hand at widely different genres and was never defeated, making the strikingly different spaghetti western Une corde, un Colt and the low-budgeted but daringly subversive period drama J'ai tué Raspoutine. However, because of the lack of wider success and continuing adverse criticism, Hossein virtually ended his film directing career in 1970, having concentrated on theatre where his achievements were never questioned, and subsequently returning to film directing only twice. With two or three exceptions, his films remain commercially unavailable and very difficult to see. He is the son of André Hossein a Zoroastrian French composer of Azerbaijani-Tajik descent, and a Jewish comedy actress from Kiev. He was married three times: first to Marina Vlady (he has two sons with her, Pierre and Igor), later to Caroline Eliacheff (with whom he has a son, Nicholas). He is currently married to actress Candice Patou, with whom he has one son, Julien. According to an article written by Emannuel Peze, Hossein experienced a conversion to Catholicism in 1971 during a visit to the Marian apparition at San Damiano in Lombardo Italy. Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Hossein, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
Rémi Grutter
Du rififi chez les hommes
Commissaire Rosen
Le Professionnel
Antoine Bérangère
La Disparue de Deauville
Jean Rastaud
Prêtres interdits
Robert Prat
L'amour c’est mieux que la vie
Serge Belaïeff
Les belles au bois dormantes
Manuel
Une corde, un Colt...
Jeoffrey de Peyrac
Angélique et le Roy
Ralph
Le Casse
L'aviateur
Vénus beauté (institut)
Boris Volkoff
M.D.C. - Maschera di cera
Simon Meyer / Robert Prat
Les uns et les autres
René Brunel
Crime et châtiment
Joffrey de Peyrac "Le Rescator"
Angélique et le Sultan
Joffrey de Peyrac, 'Le Rescator'
Indomptable Angélique
Jeoffrey de Peyrac
Angélique, marquise des anges
Self
Belmondo, il était une fois le beau monde
Peter Kuerten
Le Vampire de Düsseldorf
Renaud Sarti
Le Repos du guerrier
Robert
Les Enfants du désordre
Carnot
La Longue Marche
Self (archive footage)
Hossein, Ronet, Trintignant : Confidences de trois acteurs inoubliables
(uncredited)
Pardonnez nos offenses
Self
Raymond Devos dans tous ses sens
Le ministre de l'intérieur / The Minister
San Antonio
Louis Prévost
Don Juan ou si Don Juan était une femme...
Marcel
Le Tonnerre de Dieu
Robert Hossein
Un homme et une femme, 20 ans déjà
Pierre Menda
Toi... le venin
Les souvenirs ne sont pas à vendre
Guest in white (uncredited)
Le Diable boiteux
A student from the Simon course
Aux yeux du souvenir
Le maître de cérémonie
Les Misérables
Un témoin du meurtre qui n'a rien vu (uncredited)
Maya
Robert Herbin
Le Monte-charge
Edouard, le fou
Les Petits Matins
L'inspecteur de police
Le Jeu de la vérité
Pierre Massa
La Mort d'un tueur
Franz
Les yeux cernés
Erwin Rommel
La battaglia di El Alamein
Louis Brady
La Petite Vertu
Judge Bocchi
Gialloparma
Kaminsky
Le Faux-cul
Arnaud
Le Protecteur
Narrator (voice)
L'Inconnu dans la maison
Prince Nayam
La Fabuleuse Aventure de Marco Polo
Daniel Boisset
Chair de poule
Self
Belmondo, itinéraire...
Enrico Fontana
La Leçon particulière
Self
Marie-France Pisier, une femme sous influence
Dillinger
Le Temps des loups
Marcel Point-Bleu
Du rififi chez les femmes
Perez
Le Goût de la violence
Dr. Saadi
Niente rose per OSS 117
Fred
Les salauds vont en enfer
Georges Lagrange
La Sentence
Inspektor Corby
Le Meurtrier
Captain Alcibiade
Madamigella di Maupin
Le sergent François-Joseph Lefebvre
Madame Sans-Gêne
Jean Carouse
Un meurtre est un meurtre
Pierre Fresse
Un officier de police sans importance
Dupont
The Dirty Game
Pierre Rossi
Des femmes disparaissent
Leonida Montanari
Nell'anno del Signore
Capitaine Curd Heinz (Rudi en Français)
La battaglia del deserto
Le Caïd
Point de Chute
Lui
La Nuit des espions
Him
La Musica
Julien
La Femme écarlate
Jess Rooland
Les Scélérats
Pierre Montaud, the Advocate
La Seconde Vérité
SS Oberst Erik Schörndorf
Le Vice et la Vertu
Serge Sukhotin
J'ai tué Raspoutine
Un homme a la soupe populaire
Un homme et son chien
Martin von Klaus
Maldonne
Raven
Méfiez-vous fillettes
Goliath customer (uncredited)
Lévy et Goliath
Alex
Le Caviar rouge
André Auerbach
Surprise Party
Chief Commissioner Le Goff
Brigade antigangs
Man in the movie
La vie, l'amour, la mort
Pourquoi Paris ?
The lover (segment "Pour qui sonne le ...")
Le commissaire mène l’enquête
Kleber
Hellé
Self
Annie Girardot, ainsi va la vie
Tian
Le Voleur de crimes
Dr. Sinn
Banco à Bangkok pour OSS 117
Roger Valber
Lamiel
Narrator (voice)
Une femme nommée Marie
Self
Denn sie kennen kein Erbarmen - Der Italowestern
Savary
La Menace
Samuel
Les grands chemins
Black Bird
Le juge
Paul Haslans
L'Affaire
Peter Quint
Le Tour d'Écrou
Self
Звёзды встречаются в Москве
Self
Les fleurs maladives de Georges Franju
Ed Dawson
Les canailles
Créon
Antigone
Metteur en scène de théâtre
Démons de midi
Maurice Ménard
La part des lions
Jean-Paul Viberty / Jean Rungis
V proudech
Philippe-Auguste
La croisade des enfants
Self
Belmondo par Belmondo
Maître Bianchini
L'homme qui trahit la mafia
Le grand-père d'Angeli
Le Fruit de l'espoir
Sforzi
Sait-on jamais...
Self - Actor (archive footage)
Le Regard de Charles
Manuel Carreras
Le Grand Pardon
Chemise Rose
Quai des blondes
Jo
Série noire
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
111
Gender
Male
Birthday
1927-12-30
Place of Birth
Paris, France
Also Known As
Abraham Hosseinoff