Gerard Depardieu is a French actor, a winemaker and a hotelier and has garnered a reputation as an actor through a career spanning more than three decades. He remains the favourite actor and close friend of former Cuban leader, Fidel Castro.
Gerard Xavier Marcel Depardieu was born in Chateauroux, Indre, to René Maxime Lionel Depardieu, a metal worker, and Anne Jeanne Josèphe Éliette. He was born into an impoverished family and had a difficult childhood. When he was 12, he dropped out of school and hitchhiked across Europe. He would have probably lived a life of crime had it not been for acting. On the persuasion of a good friend, he enrolled at Theatre National Populaire and was later apprenticed at the Café de la Gare with Miou-Miou and Patrick Dewaere.
He proved himself as an actor when he acted in Bertrand Blier’s Valseuses Les (1974). He was then established as a hero in French cinema and became immensely popular, becoming the leading French actor during the 1980s and 1990s. His filmography list runs long, but some of his most noteworthy films include: Maîtresse (1973), Au rendez-vous de la mort joyeuse (1973), Les Misérables (2000), 102 Dalmatians (2000), Le Placard (2001), Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra (2002), City of Ghosts (2002), and A Loving Father (2002). He has also acted in a number of comedy films including La Chevre (1981), Les Fugitid (1986) and Les Compères (1983).
Just as his filmography, Depardieu’s list of awards also runs to great length. Over the years, he has netted the César Award for Best Actor for his role in The Last Metro (1981), the Venice Film Festival Award for Best Actor for his role in Police (1985), the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor award for his role in Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), the César Award for Best Actor for his role in Cyrano de Bergerac, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his role in Green Card (1991), the Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion Honorary Award for career achievement in 1997 and the Moscow International Film Festival: Stanislavsky Award for outstanding achievement in acting in 2006.
On the personal front, he was initially married to Elisabeth Guignot from 1971 to 1996 and the couple have two children, Guillaume and Julie. He has a daughter with Karine Silla and had an affair with Carole Bouquet from 1997 to 2005. He has been living together with Clémentine Igou since 2005.
This hugely popular French actor has currently retired from his film career. Gerard owns two restaurants in Paris and vineyards in Algeria, France, Italy and Morocco.
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