Bernard Dhéran(1926-2013)

Anyone living in France has necessarily seen or heard Bernard Dhéran, in a theater, in a movie house, on a DVD or on a TV screen. Didn't he interpret dozens and dozens of plays - plays he sometimes directed himself? Wasn't he in 112 films, TV movies or series? Didn't he dub scores of famous actors such as David Niven, Sean Connery, Christopher Plummer, Christopher Lee or IanMcKellen? And yet if you ask anyone in France whether they know the name of Bernard Dhéran you are very likely to get a negative answer. And yet his fine figure, his great presence, his male assertive voice, his elegance (including when he plays the villain of the piece) are unmistakable. Born Bernard Poulain in Dieppe in 1926, he was raised in Rouen and was fourteen when the Nazis invaded France. When time came for him to choose a career he did not know what to do exactly but he took drama classes on a fancy. Little by little passion was aroused and it would never relinquish its grip on Bernard, now Dhéran - to his (and our) delight. He debuted in "Hamlet" in 1946 and was accepted at the Conservatoire de Paris the following year where he won a second prize. First hired by the Renaud-Barrault company, he belonged to the Comédie Française for nearly thirty years. He acted in plays by Molière, Corneille, Mirbeau, Montherlant, Camus, Billetdoux, Poiret, among many many others. He was acclaimed recently in Laurent Baffie's hilarious play "Toc Toc". Solicited by the cinema industry, Bernard Dhéran did not say no but it wasn't long before disappointment set in. Three roles in movies by his master Sacha Guitry, Gina Lollobrigida's fiancé (no less!) in René Clair's "Les Belles de Nuit" (1952) and a good part in a good solidarity movie "Si tous les gars du monde" (1955) by Christian-Jaque but most of the (numerous) films he made during the 1950s were standard comedies or crime stories in which he was invariably the elegant cynical gangster, crook or other type of bad man. Sick and tired, Dhéran went on working for the theater and favored TV where he got much more rewarding parts. He could indeed switch from Buckingham to Richelieu to Beaumarchais, to Voltaire to Talleyrand! Whereas only two or three films he made for the cinema stand out: "La belle Américaine (1962), Le silencieux" (1972), "Ridicule" (1995). It was a pleasure to find him back in 2007 in one of Claude Berri's last films "Ensemble c'est tout", in which he was the picturesque father of colorful Laurent Stocker. Be that as it may, Bernard Dhéran is still active and passionate sixty-three years after he first appeared on a stage. An everyday dedication to his art that commands respect.