Jean-Paul Belmondo – Actor, producer Born April 9, 1933; died September 6, 2021 Jean-Paul Belmondo, who has died aged 88, was an actor who epitomised 1960s Gallic cool. Coming to prominence during the French nouvelle vague, Belmondo became a star after appearing opposite Jean Seberg in A bout de souffle (Breathless) (1960). With a restless gait, a broken nose, and a way of hanging a cigarette from his lips with a loucheness few could match, Belmondo became the golden boy of the new wave. For intellectually inclined directors such as Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Pierre Melville and Louis Malle, he became their very own rebel without a cause, as they projected their desire for anti-establishment action upon him. While they theorised their European dissections of American genre flicks, for a while, at least, he embodied their counter-cultural ideal. This was the case too for non-French directors, including Vittorio De Sica, who directed Belmondo alongside Sophia Loren in Two Women
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.