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Gerard Depardieu

Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu was born to a poor French family in Châteauroux, France on 27 December 1948 and was one of a family of 6 children. As a child born in post war France, life was rather drab for many French families, such as his. Gerard brightened his youthful time by frequenting the US Military base close to his local village and spending his time 'on the streets' rather than at school. He became enamoured of the American way of life and spent much time dreaming of becoming a Hollywood movie star and 'living the dream'. He admits that he fell in with some bad people, although not essentially by design and managed to move away from this. He eventually met someone who helped him on the road to his fabulous acting career. When he was 16 he decided to leave home for Paris, where he met and was nurtured in his acting career by Jean-Laurent Cochet. His big acting role came when he played a hunch back farmer in 'Jean De Florette' (a must view for Depardieu fans). His big break came with his part in 'Cyrano De Bergerac'' for which he received a 'cesar' award. In 1970 Depardieu married Élisabeth Guignot with whom he had two children, actor Guillaume (1971–2008) and actress Julie, whom he has since divorced and gone onto other relationships. From his marriage to Elisabeth he had two children, a son, Guillaume and a daughter, Julie who is also an actress. Sadly his son died of pneumonia in October 2008.

Gerard eventually achieved his life dream of becoming a Hollywood star and going to America and made several 'light-weight' films achieving world notoriety in such movies as 'Green Card' and 'My Father The Hero'. However, the US life was not all he had thought it would be, and one of the problems he struggled was the difference in US and French culture, especially in relation to food attitudes. He has said in his biography that he could not understand Americans eating habits on set, going off individually to eat sandwiches or fast foods, whilst he was used to meal times being a time for family and friends to get together and take their time over eating fine foods and drinking fine wine. Gerard was suffering from homesickness, and he found this such a problem that he eventually employed his own team of chefs and people to travel with him - giving him similar experiences of his own French culture - he admits that good food and wine are of importance to him, and often oversaw the preparation of the meals personally.

Depardieu eventually, all but, dropped out of the Hollywood scene preferring to spend time in his native France and Paris, he went has gone on to make many more highly successful and superb French movies, such as 'The Count of Monte Christo' in 1998, in which he is taken as a serious actor of extremely high calibre, and has worked with Daniel Auteuill, a fellow superb French actor on several occasions including the brilliant '36'. Sadly for fans, Depardieu made the decision to retire, but in his own words has achieved all he wanted in film making, and has left a huge legacy of movies, most of which can be found for purchase or rental at Love Film.

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