Date of birth: 1931-05-24
Place of birth: Paris, France
Known for: Acting
Also known as: Michel Lonsdale, Майкл Лонсдейл, Мишель Лонсдаль, Майкл Лонсдаль

Michael Edward Lonsdale Crouch (24 May 1931 – 21 September 2020), commonly known as Michael Lonsdale and sometimes as Michel Lonsdale, was a French-British actor and author who appeared in over 180 films and television shows. He is often known in the English-speaking world for his roles as the villain Hugo Drax in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker, deputy police commissioner Claude Lebel in The Day of the Jackal (1973), The Abbot in The Name of the Rose (1986) and Dupont d'Ivry in The Remains of the Day (1993). Lonsdale was born in Paris, the natural son of British Army officer Edward Lonsdale Crouch and Simone Calderon (née Béraud). He was brought up initially on the island of Jersey, then in London from 1935, and later, during the Second World War, in Casablanca, Morocco. He returned to Paris to study painting in 1947, but was drawn into the world of acting instead, first appearing on stage at the age of 24. Lonsdale was bilingual, and appeared in both English-language and French-language productions. He appeared in a starring role with Roger Moore in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker. and with Sean Connery, in the 1986 film The Name of the Rose. He would later appear in Munich (2005), a film that also starred another Bond, Daniel Craig. In February 2011, he won a César Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Of Gods and Men. Lonsdale was also the author of ten books. A practising Roman Catholic, he was close to the Emmanuel Community. In his 2016 memoir Le Dictionnaire de Ma Vie, Lonsdale revealed he had fallen for Delphine Seyrig, having met her as a student in Tania Balachova's acting classes at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in 1947. He wrote that "it was her or nothing", which was why he never married. Lonsdale died in Paris on 21 September 2020, aged 89. Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Lonsdale, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

1986-09-24
14th-century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young novice arrive at a conference to f

1968-09-04
The third in a series of films featuring François Truffaut's alter-ego, Antoine Doinel, the story re

2005-12-23
During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a

1979-06-26
After Drax Industries' Moonraker space shuttle is hijacked, secret agent James Bond is assigned to i

1990-01-01
A two-part documentary made for French TV about Georges Perec, directed by his former partner Cather
2008-01-01

1969-09-10
Hubert de Tartas' life becomes a complete muddle when his wife's grandfather is unearthed after havi

2007-05-30
Secrets, rumors and betrayals surround the upcoming marriage between a young dissolute man and virtu
1980-09-07

1968-03-22
Julie Kohler is prevented from suicide by her mother. She leaves home, with the intent track down, c

1991-12-04
The naive and self-conscious Leah mistakenly signs a pact with the devil Abargadon. But she's on Hea

1982-10-15
Five highly-trained KGB agents are sent to the west to assassinate several Soviet dissidents. In ord

1971-05-07
A judge investigating police corruption finds that the deeper he digs, the more roadblocks he finds.

1960-12-21
Between a whimsical wife, two insolent girls, a son who is engaged in strange chemical experiments a

1973-05-16
An international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to kill P

1972-01-05
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2004-09-01
As young French couple Gilles and Marion officially separate, we see, in reverse order, the mileston

1974-09-10
This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incid

1956-08-22
During a stopover in Aden, a charming actress is kidnapped by an Arab prince.

1998-09-25
A briefcase with undisclosed contents – sought by Irish terrorists and the Russian mob – makes its w

1974-01-06
Lefebvre's Le Droit à la Ville as visualised by Jean-Louis Bertucelli
1976-01-01
A César nominated short drama.

2009-05-17
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1995-10-18
Nelly leaves her lazy, unemployed husband to work for retired judge Mr Arnaud, forty years her senio

1974-11-27
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2007-07-29
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1981-04-15
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1975-06-11
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1971-04-27
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2005-09-14
Newly married, Mathilde and Robert are honeymooning at a resort owned by their friends Edith and Art

2007-09-12
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1974-05-15
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2011-04-06
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1984-08-22
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1975-04-02
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1974-10-25
In the newspaper he has just founded, journalist Dolannes exposes all the wheeling and dealing and s

2004-11-10
A mysterious writer is involved in a love affair with his stepson's wife, leading to a web of intrig

2010-09-08
A group of Trappist monks reside in the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria, where they live in harmon

2005-06-15
A budding electronica artist gives up his shot at stardom to pursue a woman from a telephone dating

1976-06-02
The full soundtrack to Marguerite Duras' 1975 film India Song, about a French ambassador's wife in 1

1969-09-25
In a secluded hotel circumscribed by a dense forest Max and Alissa Thor meet Stein and Elisabeth. Ma

2000-04-05
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1993-04-21
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2003-10-29
From his locksmith's shop, a simple guy dreams of becoming a crime boss, at the wheel of his Cadilla

1979-03-09
During WW 2, a Basque shepherd is approached by the underground, who wants him to lead a scientist a

1970-09-16
Shots of a sequence of a shooting: young girl who must shed tears.

1960-01-31
A year after the death of their father, life can begin again for Macha, Olga, Irina and their brothe

1972-02-11
Campana, a commissar at the drugs bureau of Paris police gets an undercover job in Nice to catch an

1962-02-02
Juliette is a young woman who just can't help lying. She lies to her sister, Sophie, to Sophie's fia

2006-01-28
Summer is slowly drawing to a close. Jeanne, in her sixties, is abandoned on the side of the road wi

1975-05-14
Somewhere in rural France, a young English female tourist is sexually assaulted by two men in the co

1965-01-15
Seven old pals live inseparable lives, dividing their time between hilarious pranks and memorable dr

2011-09-28
In Paris during WWII, an Algerian immigrant is inspired to join the resistance by his unexpected fri

1990-12-15
While two theater groups rehearse plays by Aeschylus, two solitary individuals wander the Parisian s

1974-03-07
A young woman is questioned by the police and the judges, suspected of being a modern witch. The gir

1975-06-04
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2000-08-01
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1968-01-12
Mr Jo, nicknamed "the man with the Buick", is the darling of the small town of Honfleur. But he is i

1976-09-23
Paris, France, 1942, during the Nazi occupation. Robert Klein, a successful art dealer who benefits

2005-12-14
As Gentille opens, Fontaine Leglou is walking down a Paris street, and stops to confront a man whom

2011-10-07
When a group of African immigrants builds a cardboard village between the pews of a church soon to b

1975-04-23
In occupied France during the WWII, a German officer is murdered. The collaborationist Vichy governm

1975-10-15
A small industrialist from Toulouse, goes to Paris to negotiate the buyout of his company from an Am

1966-04-26
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1962-09-05
Four vice-presidents fight among themselves to reach the top post after the president dies. Their wi

1972-02-25
Film montage of documents shot between 1895 and 1900 by the operators of the Lumière brothers.

2012-09-10
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1970-11-25
Eric, a 14-year-old boy, is now almost alone. His mother, faced with her husband's bizarre behavior,

1969-01-08
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1976-07-02
Constructed like an animated painting in a single fixed shot where light, voice, music and movements

2004-09-08
Under threat in Algeria, Ismahel emigrates to France where he wants to live and work, with the hope

1975-01-27
Challenged by a new student, tutor and theorist Galileo co-opts emerging telescope technology and di

2013-06-26
Charles Senac, author of a single novel but crowned by the Prix Goncourt, is hated by the regulars o

1981-09-01
This complex and puzzling French drama walks the fine wavering line between the fictional and the ve

1997-05-27
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1965-08-10
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1982-06-04
After a businessman is captured by kidnappers, his rescue seems incumbent on a group of filmmakers,

1971-10-27
One of four Hanoun films that take their titles from the seasons of the year, SPRING tells two paral

1964-01-01
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1964-07-14
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1962-07-06
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1994-08-04
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1983-06-01
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1977-11-09
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1974-08-08
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2014-07-23
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1987-10-01
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1974-01-01
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1995-03-31
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1984-04-11
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2016-04-27

1977-09-07
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1973-12-12
1970s France. In this modern Parisian city suburb, the paths cross of two neighbours living on the s

2001-09-26
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1960-02-03
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1983-09-21
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1974-04-24
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Painter Francisco Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition after his muse, Inés, is arrest

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1982-01-01
On photographs taken by Cuchi White of trompe l'oeil painted on the walls of Paris and elsewhere, th

1977-04-19
Alain Brissot, an executive in a major company, was made redundant following a redundancy plan, but

1976-03-30
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1985-09-20
A man who was a confidant of Adolf Hitler dies and leaves a fortune to make amends for his Nazi past

1969-12-31
While working on a documentary about the city of Bruges, an artistically frustrated filmmaker must d

1976-12-16
Adaptation of the classic Herman Melville short story. The narrator, an elderly Manhattan lawyer wit
1979-01-01
The demoness Sylvie Bréal offers voyeurs a breast to die for. Notable for being the first French fe

1989-01-06
In 1944, a dashing German soldier and a beautiful French girl fell deeply in love while World War II

2016-01-27
Apocalyptic neo-western about two gangsters, a town full of crazy people and Jesus...

2016-01-27
The history of women through the Middle Ages as told to and by little boys and girls and an old man

1973-06-30
Out 1: Spectre begins as nothing more than scenes from Parisian life; only as time goes by do we rea

1981-10-07
Jean, the lead character in this psychological journey is torn by a search for his lost childhood, t

1971-04-22
In this whimsical French comedy, Cookie (aka Venus de Palma) is a tough, sweet little rich girl, and

2005-10-14
A period drama set in the early years of the 20th century. Josef, a former construction worker who d

1978-05-26
Mourning for a lost relationship can be every bit as devastating as mourning for someone who has die

1972-07-05
Julien, a movie director, is on the phase of editing his new film, "Juliette sacrifiée". Hurried by
1978-04-18
A paean to Darwin and his theories, this documentary on the increasing complexity of life forms as t

1965-04-17
At the end of the 19th Century, young Fanning finishes his studies in theology at the University of

1988-12-26
Story about the young Balthazar thrown from one remarkable event to the other. On his way through a

1966-10-26
Near the end of World War II, Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it be

1985-10-02
This quickly-filmed avant-garde farce by prolific director Raul Ruiz features an insomniac (Michel L

1974-05-20
A very personal interpretation, to say the least, of the passion of the Christ According to St. John
1989-10-25
The theme of Romeo and Juliet is the starting point from which the film spins a web of several stori

1997-01-01
A couple takes charge of mounting the film of love and war of a filmmaker friend faded away.

1971-02-16
The whole film takes place in a single room where representatives of the two political forces and th

1996-02-22

1986-01-01

1972-03-23
A small saver discovers the scam that threatens all subscribers to the "Caution foncière". He embark

2014-12-02
This is a story of a seemingly quiet and unobtrusive man, author of a colossal and partly unfinished

1968-01-02
Young Africans in Paris face insecurity and vague future. Should they stay in France, or return to t

2011-05-04
A bio-doc about Micheline Presle changes into a thrilling investigation of the long hidden truth abo

1967-12-27
20 years later, the recreation of the trial of a simple man that confesses himself as a war crimina

2017-10-20
A meditation on the passing of time, on a film that was never completed, upon Bazin’s death, on rest

2009-06-10
In an airport, six destinies, during a short moment, will change, separate and meet. And if these ch

1964-06-16
Henri has a beautiful wife, Sophie. Unfortunately, suffering from an unhealthy jealousy, he spends m

1975-08-20
Julie Ballenger has spent five years in a psychiatric clinic. Leaving the clinic apparently cured, s

1975-11-05

1962-08-25
The surreal tale of an unassuming man who is accused of a never-specified crime and shambles through

1993-01-01
Martin raises alone his son Jonas. Road works Ministry, which employs him, is upset by fighting for

2007-10-31
Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brou
1984-06-12
This afterword to India Song (Duras' celebrated 1975 film) is organized in several parts. It begins

2011-12-10

1962-07-18
Michel Jussieu, a film producer, returns one morning to the cabaret where he forgot his sweater. He

1975-04-15
Bernardette is feeling bored in a country house. She decides to send weekend invitations to a lot of

1989-01-01
From the construction of a sculpture "life size" in the earth, the director Boris Lehman imagines a
1995-01-01
A family in a car that seems to be speeding through the night. We learn that the father, a pharmaceu

2014-03-12
A famous English writer, Lewis Lafoly, forty and languidly elegant, meets Rosennn Auroch, a young an

1967-01-20
Matou is an innocuous, gentle-looking man. He is married to a formidable, even a frightening woman,

1967-07-24
Marc is a French secret agent whose only weapons are judo and karate. With the help of his sidekick

1958-11-19
Back from Indochina, Tony and Dick, two French soldiers, are now in possession of more than 20 milli

1975-01-15
Two men and a woman live quite happily together in a romantic liaison. The woman is probably wealthy

1966-01-01
An adaptation of the Beckett play

2020-09-09
Laurent Terzieff was more than a good actor, after having been a real "star" in the cinema, through

1970-02-13
Veterinary surgeon William Chaminade is having a peaceful holiday in the South of France when he is
2000-03-11
The life and work of Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), an American writer who lived in France for more tha

2019-10-30
Between dance and drawings, Arnaud des Pallières relates different moments of Degas’s life and unvei

2000-05-16
Documentary looking at the production of the James Bond movie 'Moonraker'. Narated by Patrick Macnee

2016-07-01
In June 2015, forty-five years after OUT 1 was made, the filmmakers went to Paris to interview cast
1986-10-11
A German TV documentary that chronicles the daily rehearsals, the filming and all the behind the sce

1999-06-02
Kom is from a tribe of monkeys who live in a canopy. He rejects elders' authority as well as the sup

2019-03-03
1986-07-30
To relieve her boredom, a lonely woman embarks on adventures that turn out to be disappointing.
1981-03-04

2015-07-03
Bobo and Michael Lonsdale are alone in the Château de Versailles. Together, they are walking around

1983-06-15
After the birthday party of his wife Odile, Louis accompanies a friend to the station. When the trai

1970-08-02
Two suicides take place in the same room of a hotel in Paris. The police investigate the reason why

1982-06-26
After a feminist is found murdered in her own home, a police detective investigates the crime with t

2006-11-23
Andrea works as a healer. One evening, he decides to quit, but the next night, he meets a long-lost

2005-12-02
On March 21, 1905, the hemicycle of the Palais-Bourbon resounded with the first session of a crucial

2000-06-09
Surrealist master Luis Buñuel is a towering figure in the world of cinema history, directing such gr

1983-01-01
Herbert, a Candide-like idealistic teenager, wants to become a doctor to help humanity, but his pare

1985-12-18
Billy Ze Kick is name of a fictional serial killer in a bedtime story that a police inspector reads
1976-01-01
What happens to the actors when they are left to their own devices? How to tear the screen of conven

2016-08-16
Sculpt depicts an international market organized around new shapes and experiences, all the more sou
1991-01-30

2024-05-26

2002-01-01
Esoteric documentary narrated by Michael Lonsdale.
1962-04-22

1977-11-16

1982-01-06

1964-08-14
Manuel Artiguez, a famous bandit during the Spanish civil war, has lived in French exile for 20 year

1983-01-01
A documentary about 1950's Reunion island.

2025-07-13
The Life of Mirrors is one of the sections of the exhibition Luis Miguel Cintra - Small Theatre of t
1968-01-12
A TV film of the play by Edward Albee. Mild-mannered, complacent Peter is startled when an aggressiv

1986-01-01
The 8th short film as part of the Magica series dealing with pre-cinema. Fictionalised documentary a

1986-01-01
The 11th short film as part of the Magica series dealing with pre-cinema. Documentary on the work of