Jean-Pierre Cassel | French actor, 74
French actor, 74 Jean-Pierre Cassel, 74, a celebrated French actor whose skills as a tap dancer won him comparisons to Fred Astaire, died Friday in Paris of cancer.
Jean-Pierre Cassel, 74, a celebrated French actor whose skills as a tap dancer won him comparisons to Fred Astaire, died Friday in Paris of cancer.
Cassel was among France's most beloved and versatile actors and the patriarch of a dynasty of movie stars.
Cassel rose to fame in the 1960s with comedies such as Les jeux de l'amour (1960) and Le farceur (1961), both by Philippe de Broca. He later starred in films by French directors Jean Renoir, Claude Chabrol and Jean-Pierre Melville.
He was featured in several English-language movies, including the 1965 adventure Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines and Robert Altman's 1994 comedy Pret-a-Porter.
Cassel was a singer as well as a tap dancer who continued performing into his 70s, giving a one-man show in Paris in 1994 featuring some of Astaire's best-known tap routines.
Two of his children are also in show business. Actor son Vincent Cassel is married to Italian screen siren Monica Bellucci.
- AP