Robert Hossein

Acting · 1.3 popularity

Age

Movies

115

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

115 films

The Professional

19817.2

Prêtres interdits

19736.0

Angelique

19646.7

Rififi

19557.8

Belmondo by Belmondo

20167.8

Trivial

20074.2

The Burglars

19716.9

Belmondo: The Incorrigible

20228.2

Angelique and the Sultan

19686.4

Angelique and the King

19666.5

L'Affaire

19943.6

Belmondo, itinéraire...

20117.7

I Killed Rasputin

19674.4

The Scarlet Lady

19696.5

Untamable Angelique

19676.5

Madame

19615.8

Picking Strawberries

2025

The Man Who Betrayed the Mafia

19674.8

Paris Pick-Up

19626.5

Bolero

19816.9

Venus Beauty Institute

19995.9

Of Flesh and Blood

196310.0

Cemetery Without Crosses

19696.3

Marco the Magnificent

19654.8

Les Miserables

19956.7

The Menace

19615.9

Paradjanov, le dernier collage

19957.0

Don Juan or If Don Juan Were a Woman

19734.6

Love on a Pillow

19625.8

The Conspirators

19697.6

The Dirty Game

19656.0

Time of the Wolves

19706.0

A Man and His Dog

20095.8

The Lion's Share

19715.5

OSS 117 Murder for Sale

19685.7

The Wax Mask

19975.7

Sextette

19488.0

A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later

19865.9

Highway Pick-Up

19636.9

OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok

19647.7

The Battle of El Alamein

19695.3

Children of Chaos

19895.4

Quai des blondes

19545.8

San Antonio

20043.7

Belmondo, il était une fois le beau monde

20116.0

Aznavour by Charles

20196.9

Crime and Punishment

19567.0

Lamiel

19675.2

Les fleurs maladives de Georges Franju

20097.0

Misdeal

19693.8

Mademoiselle de Maupin

19666.1

Denn sie kennen kein Erbarmen - Der Italowestern

20066.5

Noni : Le Fruit de l'espoir

2020

Tender Moment

19686.3

The Phoney

19755.0

Marked Eyes

19646.3

Vice and Virtue

19635.6

God's Thunder

19656.3

Riff Raff Girls

19595.3

Versatile Lovers

19703.6

Stranger in the House

19926.5

Love Is Better Than Life

20225.3

Surprise Party

19835.0

The Big Pardon

19826.2

Une femme nommée Marie

2011

Levy & Goliath

19875.1

Blonde in a White Car

19596.8

Judge Roy Bean

19716.5

No Sun in Venice

19575.5

The Vampire of Dusseldorf

19655.6

Série noire

19556.3

Brigade Anti Gangs

19666.5

Death of a Killer

19646.2

The Taste of Violence

19616.6

Enough Rope

19635.8

The Game of Truth

19616.0

Falling Point

19705.9

A Little Virtuous

19686.5

Hitch-Hike

19626.1

Hellé

19724.8

The Other Truth

19666.1

A Police Officer Without Importance

19737.0

Desert Assault

19696.0

Young Girls Beware

19575.5

Le commissaire mène l’enquête

19658.0

Life Love Death

19695.5

The Devil Who Limped

19486.5

The Wicked Go to Hell

19556.4

Long March

19668.0

In the Eyes of Memory

19487.0

Crime Thief

19695.3

Stars Meet in Moscow

1959

A Murder Is a Murder

19725.4

Hossein, Ronet, Trintignant : Confidences de trois acteurs inoubliables

2021

Double Agents

19595.6

Why Paris?

19649.0

The Road to Shame

19596.1

Forgive Our Trespasses

19566.0

Maya

19495.6

The Wretches

19606.4

The Verdict

19597.0

Démons de midi

19797.5

Scandalous Crimes

19994.0

Take Me As I Am

19607.3

Provisional Liberty

19585.0

The Protector

19744.3

Antigone

20036.5

La Musica

19675.0

La croisade des enfants

19889.0

Le Caviar rouge

19867.0

Annie Girardot, ainsi va la vie

20088.0

Raymond Devos dans tous ses sens

2022

Le Tour d'Écrou

19748.0

Marie-France Pisier, une femme sous influence

2014

Du rififi chez les hommes - Jules Dassin, l'élégance du noir

2009