Robert Hossein

Acting · 1.3 popularity

Age

Movies

114

Born: December 30, 1927 – December 31, 2020
From: Paris, France

Biography

Robert Hossein was a French film actor of Parsi origin, director and writer. He directed the 1982 adaption of Les Misérables, and appeared in Vice and Virtue, Le Casse, Les Uns et les Autres and Venus Beauty Institute. His most recent roles include starring as Michèle Mercier's husband in the Angélique series and as a Catholic priest who falls in love with Claude Jade and becomes a communist in Prêtres interdits (Forbidden Priests) in 1973. Hossein started directing films in 1956 with Les salauds vont en enfer from a story by Frédéric Dard whose novels and plays went on to furnish Hossein with much of his later film material. Right from the start Hossein established his characteristic trademarks: using a seemingly straightforward suspense plot and subverting its conventions (sometimes to the extent of a complete disregard of the traditional demand for a final twist or revelation) in order to concentrate on ritualistic relationships. This is the director's running preoccupation which is always stressed in his films by an extraordinary command of film space and often striking frame compositions where the geometry of human figures and set design is used to accentuate the psychological set-up of the scene. The mechanisms of guilt and the way it destroys relationships is another recurring theme, presumably influenced by Hossein's lifelong interest in the works of Dostoyevski. Although Hossein had some modest international successes with films like Toi, le venin and Le vampire de Dusseldorf, he was much singled out for scorching criticism by the critics and followers of the New Wave for the unashamedly melodramatic frameworks of his films. The fact that he was essentially an auteur director with a consistent set of themes and an extraordinary mastery of original and unusual approaches to staging his stories, was never appreciated. He was not averse to trying his hand at widely different genres and was never defeated, making the strikingly different spaghetti western Une corde, un Colt and the low-budgeted but daringly subversive period drama J'ai tué Raspoutine. However, because of the lack of wider success and continuing adverse criticism, Hossein virtually ended his film directing career in 1970, having concentrated on theatre where his achievements were never questioned, and subsequently returning to film directing only twice. With two or three exceptions, his films remain commercially unavailable and very difficult to see. He is the son of André Hossein a Zoroastrian French composer of Azerbaijani-Tajik descent, and a Jewish comedy actress from Kiev. He was married three times: first to Marina Vlady (he has two sons with her, Pierre and Igor), later to Caroline Eliacheff (with whom he has a son, Nicholas). He is currently married to actress Candice Patou, with whom he has one son, Julien. According to an article written by Emannuel Peze, Hossein experienced a conversion to Catholicism in 1971 during a visit to the Marian apparition at San Damiano in Lombardo Italy. Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Hossein, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Works

114 films

The Professional

19817.2

Angelique

19646.7

Prêtres interdits

19736.0

The Burglars

19716.9

Belmondo by Belmondo

20167.8

L'Affaire

19943.6

Rififi

19557.8

Trivial

20074.2

Belmondo, itinéraire...

20117.7

Angelique and the King

19666.5

Angelique and the Sultan

19686.4

Belmondo: The Incorrigible

20228.2

Bolero

19816.9

Untamable Angelique

19676.5

I Killed Rasputin

19674.4

The Scarlet Lady

19696.5

Picking Strawberries

2025

Of Flesh and Blood

196310.0

Madame

19615.8

Paris Pick-Up

19626.5

The Wax Mask

19975.7

The Menace

19615.9

A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later

19865.9

Time of the Wolves

19706.0

Venus Beauty Institute

19995.9

Don Juan or If Don Juan Were a Woman

19734.6

Lamiel

19675.2

The Lion's Share

19715.5

Marco the Magnificent

19654.8

Cemetery Without Crosses

19696.3

Love on a Pillow

19625.8

Paradjanov, le dernier collage

19957.0

The Man Who Betrayed the Mafia

19674.8

Children of Chaos

19895.4

Sextette

19488.0

Les Miserables

19956.7

The Dirty Game

19656.0

OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok

19647.7

A Man and His Dog

20095.8

Aznavour by Charles

20196.9

Versatile Lovers

19703.6

Crime and Punishment

19567.0

The Conspirators

19697.6

OSS 117 Murder for Sale

19685.7

Misdeal

19693.8

The Battle of El Alamein

19695.3

The Phoney

19755.0

God's Thunder

19656.3

The Vampire of Dusseldorf

19655.6

The Big Pardon

19826.2

San Antonio

20043.7

Mademoiselle de Maupin

19666.1

Highway Pick-Up

19636.9

Love Is Better Than Life

20225.3

Riff Raff Girls

19595.3

Denn sie kennen kein Erbarmen - Der Italowestern

20066.5

The Wicked Go to Hell

19556.4

Blonde in a White Car

19596.8

Les fleurs maladives de Georges Franju

20097.0

Série noire

19556.3

Desert Assault

19696.0

Brigade Anti Gangs

19666.5

Noni : Le Fruit de l'espoir

2020

The Taste of Violence

19616.6

Belmondo, il était une fois le beau monde

20116.0

Surprise Party

19835.0

Quai des blondes

19545.8

A Police Officer Without Importance

19737.0

Enough Rope

19635.8

Stranger in the House

19926.5

Young Girls Beware

19575.5

Vice and Virtue

19635.6

Maya

19495.6

The Verdict

19597.0

Une femme nommée Marie

2011

Tender Moment

19686.3

Hellé

19724.8

No Sun in Venice

19575.5

The Devil Who Limped

19486.5

The Other Truth

19666.1

Long March

19668.0

Levy & Goliath

19875.1

Death of a Killer

19646.2

Hitch-Hike

19626.1

Marked Eyes

19646.3

A Murder Is a Murder

19725.4

A Little Virtuous

19686.5

Crime Thief

19695.3

Le commissaire mène l’enquête

19658.0

Falling Point

19705.9

Stars Meet in Moscow

1959

Double Agents

19595.6

The Game of Truth

19616.0

Judge Roy Bean

19716.5

In the Eyes of Memory

19487.0

Life Love Death

19695.5

The Wretches

19606.4

La Musica

19675.0

The Protector

19744.3

Démons de midi

19797.5

Take Me As I Am

19607.3

Scandalous Crimes

19994.0

Annie Girardot, ainsi va la vie

20088.0

Why Paris?

19649.0

Hossein, Ronet, Trintignant : Confidences de trois acteurs inoubliables

2021

Le Caviar rouge

19867.0

Antigone

20036.5

La croisade des enfants

19889.0

Provisional Liberty

19585.0

Raymond Devos dans tous ses sens

2022

Forgive Our Trespasses

19566.0

Le Tour d'Écrou

19748.0

The Road to Shame

19596.1

Marie-France Pisier, une femme sous influence

2014