Alain Cuny
| Alain Cuny | |
|---|---|
Alain Cuny, Paris, 1979
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| Born |
René Xavier Marie Alain Cuny July 12, 1908 Saint-Malo, Brittany |
| Died | May 16, 1994 (aged 85) Paris, France |
| Resting place | Civry-la-Forêt |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1941-1994 |
Alain Cuny (12 July 1908 – 16 May 1994) was a French actor in theatre and cinema.
Alain Cuny was born in Saint-Malo, Brittany. He developed an early interest in painting and from the age of 15 he attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He met Picasso, Braque and members of the surrealist group. He then began working in the film industry as a costume and set designer and was employed on films of Cavalcanti, Feyder and Renoir. After a meeting with the actor-manager Charles Dullin, Cuny was persuaded to study drama and he began acting on stage in the late 1930s. In the theatre Cuny became particularly linked with the works of Paul Claudel (who said of him after a performance of L'Annonce faite à Marie in 1944, "I have been waiting for you 20 years"). Another literary friend and hero was Antonin Artaud, "whose texts he read with supreme conviction at a time when Artaud was more or less an outcast, a situation reflected in Artaud's Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society, which Cuny interpreted in his voice's fabulous organ tones." Later Cuny worked with Jean Vilar at the Théâtre national populaire, and with Jean-Louis Barrault at the Odéon-Théâtre de France. His dramatic presence and measured diction made him well-suited to many classical roles.
His first major role in the cinema was as one of the devil's envoys in Marcel Carné's 1942 film Les Visiteurs du soir. A few other romantic leading parts followed, but increasingly he made notable appearances in supporting roles, especially in characterizations of intellectuals such as the tormented philosopher Steiner in La dolce vita (1960), directed by Federico Fellini. He worked frequently in Italian cinema and had close associations with Michelangelo Antonioni and Francesco Rosi as well as Fellini. One of his most admired film performances was in Rosi's Uomini contro (Many Wars Ago, 1970), as the rigidly authoritarian General Leone.
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