Jean Martin
Date of birth: 1922-03-06
Place of birth: Paris, France
Known for: Acting
Also known as:
Biography
Jean Martin (6 March 1922 - 2 February 2009) was a French actor. Coming from a Berry family, he spent part of his childhood in Biarritz, where his father worked for a furrier. During the Second World War, he hid to escape the Forced Labor Service. Staying in Paris, he appeared in two films by Maurice Tourneur: "The Devil's Hand" (1942) then "Cécile Est Mort" (1943). At the twilight of the forties, he started doing theater. In 1953, Jean Martin gained notoriety by playing the new play by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, "Waiting for Godot", under the direction of Roger Blin, becoming the first to take on the role of Lucky. The same Roger Blin produced “End of the Game” (1957), by the same Beckett, a few years later, and entrusted the same Jean Martin with the role of Clov. In 1960, Jean Martin staged his first play, “Letter Dead”, by Robert Pinget. In 1962, he again staged a play, “The Representatives”, by Aglaé and Mona Mitropoulos, adapted by Michel Arnaud. Alongside this theatrical career which would prove to be rich, Jean Martin returned to cinema: “Notre-Dame de Paris” (1956), by Jean Delannoy, “Paris belongs to us” (1958), by Jacques Rivette, “Ballade for a thug " (1962), by Jean-Claude Bonnardot, "La foire aux dunces" (1963), by Louis Daquin and "À toi de fait mignon" (1963), by Bernard Borderie. In 1960, he was a signatory of the Manifesto of the 121 entitled “Declaration on the right to insubordination in the Algerian war”. In 1965, a role marked his career, that of Colonel Mathieu, in a film retracing the struggle in 1957 for control of the Casbah district of Algiers between FLN militants and French soldiers: "The Battle of Algiers" . Three years after the end of the Algerian War, the subject is still sensitive on each side of the Mediterranean; the film was banned in France upon its release, then censored until 2004. Jean Martin, very convincing in this role of division commander (historically, the commander is General Massu, but the character is inspired by Colonel Bigeard), is the only professional actor in the film. His large stature, his strong personality and his imperious face predispose him to notable roles generally showing authority: chief doctor, police commissioner, high-ranking military officer, ecclesiastical dignitary...; one of the most impressive will undoubtedly be that of a doctor vehemently expelling from his hospital a judge Fayard, Patrick Dewaere, a bit of a cavalier in "Le Juge Fayard Dit Le Shérif" (1976). Claude Zidi mocks these roles in his comedies: principal in “La moutarde monte au nose” (1974), bank director in “La Course À L'Échalote” (1975), chief doctor in “L'aile ou la thigh” (1976), principal inspector in “Bête mais disciplined” (1979) and examiner in “Inspecteur la Bavure” (1980). Alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo, he is… cardinal in “L’Hériter” (1972) and… divisional commissioner in “Peur Sur La ville” (1975)! But also alongside Terence Hill in “My Name is Nobody” (1973) in the role of Sullivan, or “One Genius, Two Associates, One Bell (1975). After devoting a large part of his career to the theater, appearing in around fifty films, Jean Martin died on February 2, 2009, in Paris.
Movie Credits
A Genius, Two Friends, and an Idiot
1975-12-16
Expert conman Joe Thanks teams up with half-breed Bill and naive Lucy to steal $300,000 from the Ind
The Day of the Jackal
1973-05-16
An international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to kill P
A Woman at Her Window
1976-11-10
Greece, 1936. An aristocratic woman engages in a series of loveless affairs before finding herself
The King and the Mockingbird
1980-03-19
A young shepherdess and a chimneysweep plan to get married and escape the clutches of a tyrannical k
The Messiah
1975-10-24
Rossellini takes numerous liberties with the original source material, rearranging and omitting even
My Name Is Nobody
1973-12-13
Jack Beauregard, an aging gunman of the Old West, only wants to retire in peace and move to Europe,
The Night Caller
1975-04-09
A serial-killer frightens Paris by phoning young ladies at night, telling them insults about their l
Le Gentleman des Antipodes
1976-11-04
The Wild Goose Chase
1975-10-08
The whole intrigue is centered around carte-blanche documents kept in a vault. Whoever fills in the
The Battle of Algiers
1966-09-08
Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is se
Dossier 51
1978-08-30
A French diplomat is surveilled by a secret service to find a weakness for political control, his pr
Lucie Aubrac
1997-02-26
A love story or a tale of the resistance, this poignant movie tells both the haunting story of a Fre
I'm Losing My Temper
1974-10-09
Pierre is a clumsy, overly serious math teacher at an all-girls high school. His life is thrown into
Gustave Moreau
1962-01-02
A brilliant analysis of 19th century French Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, known for his fantasti
Cecile Is Dead
1944-03-08
Cecile, a young girl who goes to the offices of the Judicial Police several times in a row to compla
The Inheritor
1973-03-22
After his father is killed in a plane crash, Bart Cordell returns back home to France to claim his i
HPW ou Anatomie d'un faussaire
1971-07-27
Hugo-Paul de Weydroos, forger who manages to mystify the most renowned experts, is an attractive man
Marxist Poetry: The Making of The Battle of Algiers
2004-08-01
To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, we revisited our edit of the film
Les Culottes rouges
1962-12-19
Antoine Rossi, a recidivist prisoner of war in Germany, manages to escape with the cowardly Fendard.
La Puce et le privé
1981-03-11
Val Brosse, a private detective, receives Françoise, who confesses to him that she murdered her husb
Don't Take God's Children for Wild Geese
1968-09-06
Rita is a girl that lives on taking gangsters as lovers. But when the money stops coming, she swears
The Wing or the Thigh?
1976-10-27
Charles Duchemin, a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, is waging a war a
Inspector Blunder
1980-12-03
A detective, fresh out of the academy (lowest mark in class), gets the assignment to bodyguard a spo
Troubleshooters
1971-04-07
The day he is released from jail, Serge is expected by four killers sent by Count Charles Varèse ass
Your Turn, Darling
1963-02-18
In this French espionage thriller, Eddie again plays the role that made him a star, Lemmy Caution. L
The Beguines
1972-09-19
Hélène, a fragile and romantic teenager, discovers that her father, a rich business man, has a mistr
La nuit bulgare
1972-04-20
A youngish sales employee of a computer firm is blackmailed into helping a group of mysterious Bulga
Safety Catch
1970-01-14
A doctor disbarred for euthanasia is called in by a man to help his son, who has been depressed sinc
Alouqa or the Comedy of the Dead
1975-08-13
Thanks to his gifts of clairvoyance, the son of a former servant of a noble family makes his fortune
La Femme flic
1980-01-08
Young police inspector Corinne Levasseur interrogated a dealer without the judge's consent. Followin
Promise at Dawn
1970-11-25
A single mother raises her son in impossible circumstances first in Leningrad, then Krakow, and then
Soldier Martin
1966-09-28
A troupe of French actors on tour in Normandy become involved in the events of WWII.
The Carpathian Castle
1976-12-19
In 1898, strange things happen in a castle not far from the small village of Werst in the Carpathian
The Associate
1979-08-22
An unemployed investor creates a fictious business partner to attempt to improve business. Eventuall
Successive Slidings of Pleasure
1974-03-07
A young woman is questioned by the police and the judges, suspected of being a modern witch. The gir
Je T'Aime, Je T'Aime
1968-04-24
Recovering from an attempted suicide, a man is selected to participate in a time travel experiment t
The Time of the Beginning
1974-10-15
A "symbolic" character traces the path of man in search of salvation in this world within his own gh
Les filous
1967-01-01
Forgotten Stones
1952-01-01
The Nun
1967-07-26
In eighteenth-century France, a girl is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers
The Cat
1977-12-16
Amedeo and Ofelia, middle aged brother and sister, own jointly an old decadent, but still attractive
The Invention of Morel
1967-12-08
Escaped from jail, Luis finds refuge on a remote island where, it is said, several people have died
An Invitation to the Hunt
1974-11-01
Claude Chabrol film for TV based on the short story An Invitation to the Hunt by Georges Hitchcock.
Judge Fayard Called the Sheriff
1977-01-12
Jean-Marie Fayard is a young examining magistrate in a large provincial french city. He belongs to t
Cry of the Heart
1974-09-11
Alexandre, a young man from a wealthy family, suffers a serious fall. One leg is finally amputated,
The Crime of Ovide Plouffe
1984-08-29
Ovide Plouffe has married Rita. She still tries to attract other men even after their marriage. Unha
Fortunate
1960-11-16
During WW2, a posh bourgeois woman (Morgan)is compelled to live under the same room as a crude simpl
Paris Belongs to Us
1961-12-13
A young woman joins a theatrical troupe where she slowly believes that the director is involved with
L'Homme en colère
1979-03-14
Romain Dupree arrives to Montreal from France only to be informed that his son is dead. However, the