Cinema Paradiso star Philippe Noiret dies, 76

Posted:
Nov 23, 2006

French film star Philippe Noiret, whose nearly 150 films included Giuseppe Tornatore's immensely successful 1988 French-Italian comedy Cinema Paradiso, died Thursday, French television said. He was 76.

Noiret died of cancer, said France's TF1 TV network. He was widely recognized for his intense, hangdog face.

Noiret narrated the French version of 1987's L'Homme Qui Plantait des Arbres(The Man Who Planted Trees), which won the Academy Award for Best Short Film (Animated). Released by Société Radio-Canada, the half-hour film aired in 1989 on the PBS series Long Ago & Far Away.

He also narrated the 2003 French-Italian animated feature film Le Chien, Le General et Les Oiseaux(The Dog, the General, and the Birds).

Noiret appeared in movie hits over five decades, first showing up in Agnes Varda's La Pointe Courte (1955). He first gained widespread notice as the downbeat uncle in Louis Malle's classic Zazie Dans Le Metro.

In the 1994 hit Il Postino (The Postman), he played Pablo Neruda, a poet and diplomat who counsels his mailman.

Noiret's numerous awards included a BAFTA Film Award for Best Actor for Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988) and Césars (the French version of the Oscars) for Best Actor for Le Vieux fusil (1975) and La Vie et rien d'autre (1989).

The worlds of theatre and film have suddenly found themselves orphaned by Noiret's death, said French prime minister Dominique de Villepin.

"Through his voice, his allure, his panache, Philippe Noiret knew how to seize and express something within the French soul," Villepin said in a statement. "The silhouette and the voice, so tender and familiar, will be missed by all."