Pierre Richard, born in Valenciennes in 1934, is one of the great comic actors of French cinema, a lanky, blonde, endearingly clumsy screen persona known across generations. He wrote and directed his early star vehicle Le Distrait (1970) before Yves Robert’s hit The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1972) and its sequel made him a household name. Francis Veber then built a whole franchise around him with Gerard Depardieu, from La Chevre (1981) to Les Comperes (1983) and Les Fugitifs (1986). He has since kept working steadily on screen and stage, and remains synonymous with a certain wide-eyed, tender kind of French comedy. Read more