Victor Lanoux

Victor Lanoux — Biography

Born Victor Robert Nataf on 18 June 1936 in the 14th arrondissement of Paris and dying on 4 May 2017 in Vaux-sur-Mer, Victor Lanoux was the son of a Tunisian Jewish father from Sfax and a Catholic mother from Normandy; evacuated from Paris during the Second World War, he lived in La Chapelle-Taillefert until he was eleven. He left school at fourteen to apprentice as a varnisher, worked on the Simca assembly line, and was wounded serving in the French Army during the Algerian War, for which he received the Médaille des blessés de guerre; his father then got him a job at the Studio de Billancourt, and he learned acting through a correspondence course.

In 1961 he met Pierre Richard and partnered him in a cabaret act for several years, including a season at the Bobino and a tour of Le Gorille; spotted in that act by René Allio, he was cast in The Shameless Old Lady, which led to a starring role in La Vie Normale. Georges Wilson cast him as Laertes in Hamlet at the TNP, followed by La Folle de Chaillot and a three-year run starring in Illusion Comique. He received two nominations at the first César Awards in 1976, for Cousin Cousine and Adieu Poulet; outside Europe he is best remembered as the thief in National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985), and he later reached wide television audiences as an antique dealer in the France 3 series Louis la Brocante. Lanoux was in a long relationship with actress Marie-José Nat and remained a respected figure in French cinema and theatre throughout his life.