The best foreign comedic actors
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Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza was born on July 31, 1914, in Courbevoie, France. His father, named Carlos Luis de Funes de Galarza, was a former lawyer of Seville, Spain, who became a diamond cutter. His mother, named Leonor Soto Reguera, was of Spanish and Portugese extraction.
Young Louis de Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing. He dropped out of school and worked various jobs, mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, making his customers laugh every time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. There he made some useful contacts, including Daniel Gélin among others. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, named Jeanne de Maupassant, a grand-niece of writer Guy de Maupassant. She had fallen in love with "the young man who played jazz like god"; they married in 1943, and had two sons born in 1944 and 1949. Funès continued playing piano at clubs, knowing there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gelin encouraged him until he managed to overcome his rejection. He made his film debut in 1945, at the age of 31, and went on playing about one hundred film roles in the next twenty years.
Louis de Funès shot to international fame in the 1960's after his roles in such slapstick comedies as The Gendarme of Saint-Tropez (1964) and the Fantomas (1964) trilogy. He brilliantly portrayed a funny French policeman, whose hilarious hyperactivity, uncontrolled anger, and sardonic laughter produced a highly comic effect. Funès was voted the most favorite actor in France in 1968, and remained very popular in Europe during the 1970's. He also continued to play on stage during his career as a film star, and was acclaimed for his stage works in classic French theatre. Funès was instrumental in making film adaptations of such theatre plays as 'Oscar continues' and the Molière's 'The Miser', among other plays.
Nicknamed "the man with the forty faces per minute", Louis de Funès played bit parts in over eighty films, before he got his first leading roles, eventually becoming the leading French comedian. He co-starred with the major French actors of the time, including Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot in the Fantomas trilogy, and also Jean Gabin, Fernandel, Bourvil, Coluche, Annie Girardot, and Yves Montand. Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of Funès-Bourvil. He also worked with Jean Girault in the famous 'Gendarmes' series. In a departure from the Gendarme image, Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, who wrote for him a new character full of nuances and frankness in The Wing or The Thigh? (1976), which is arguably the best of his roles.
Funès played over 130 roles in film and over 100 roles on stage. From 1943-1983 Louis de Funès was married to Jeanne Barthelemy de Maupassant. Their son, Olivier De Funès , had a brief acting career before becoming a pilot with Air France, his other son, named Patrick de Funès, became a medical doctor. Louis de Funès was also a rose grower, a variety of roses has been named the "Louis de Funès rose" after him. He died of a heart attack and complications of a stroke on January 27, 1983, in Nantes, France. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, and a monument of him was erected in the rose-garden of his wife's castle.- Actor
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At the age of three, André Zacharie Raimbourg and his family moved to a town in the region of Normandy called Bourville. He finished school at the age of 15 and began to work as a baker. He was already playing harmonica, mandoline and cornet when he engaged himself in a village band. In the beginning of 1940 while in the army making music-hall show for the troops, he changed his name into Andrel like his idol Fernandel from whom he was singing the songs. He began to write his own songs, making a name by himself, and so in 1942 took a new name, further from "Fernandel": Bourvil(le). He was recognized as a stand-up comic, dressed as a farmer grown too fast for the shirt he wears, hair coming down on his forehead, a simple minded but crafty naive. At the end of the war the radio extended his fame. His first parts on the screen were based only on this character. It's only in 1956 with The Crossing of Paris (1956) of Claude Autant-Lara that he really began to give his real potential as an actor on the screen. His greatest popular successes will come under the direction of Gérard Oury.- Actor
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English actor, writer, and comedian Simon Pegg was born Simon John Beckingham in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, to Gillian Rosemary (Smith), a civil servant, and John Henry Beckingham, a jazz musician. His parents divorced when he was seven. He later took his stepfather's surname "Pegg." He was educated at Brockworth Comprehensive Secondary School in Gloucestershire and went on to Stratford-upon-Avon College to study English literature and performance studies. He then attended the University of Bristol, and earned a bachelor's degree in drama. In the early 2000s, Pegg moved to London and began forging a successful career in stand-up comedy. Television opportunities followed including roles in Six Pairs of Pants (1995), Asylum (1996), and We Know Where You Live (1997). In 1999, Pegg and Jessica Hynes teamed up to write and star in cult sitcom Spaced (1999), directed by Edgar Wright. The series also featured Pegg's best friend Nick Frost. Pegg's breakthrough in film came with the zom-rom-com Shaun of the Dead (2004), which he also co-wrote with director Edgar Wright. Again, the film featured Nick Frost. The trio also scored a hit with police comedy Hot Fuzz (2007). Further film successes followed for Pegg, notably in the iconic role of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in Star Trek (2009) and alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III (2006) and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).- Actor
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John Cleese was born on October 27, 1939, in Weston-Super-Mare, England, to Muriel Evelyn (Cross) and Reginald Francis Cleese. He was born into a family of modest means, his father being an insurance salesman; but he was nonetheless sent off to private schools to obtain a good education. Here he was often tormented for his height, having reached a height of six feet by the age of twelve, and eventually discovered that being humorous could deflect aggressive behavior in others. He loved humor in and of itself, collected jokes, and, like many young Britons who would grow up to be comedians, was devoted to the radio comedy show, "The Goon Show," starring the legendary Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, and Harry Secombe.
Cleese did well in both sports and academics, but his real love was comedy. He attended Cambridge to read (study) Law, but devoted a great deal of time to the university's legendary Footlights group, writing and performing in comedy reviews, often in collaboration with future fellow Python Graham Chapman. Several of these comedy reviews met with great success, including one in particular which toured under the name "Cambridge Circus." When Cleese graduated, he went on to write for the BBC, then rejoined Cambridge Circus in 1964, which toured New Zealand and America. He remained in America after leaving Cambridge Circus, performing and doing a little journalism, and here met Terry Gilliam, another future Python.
Returning to England, he began appearing in a BBC radio series, "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again", based on Cambridge Circus. It ran for several years and also starred future Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. He also appeared, briefly, with Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman in At Last the 1948 Show (1967), for television, and a series of collaborations with some of the finest comedy-writing talent in England at the time, some of whom - Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Chapman - eventually joined him in Monty Python. These programs included The Frost Report (1966) and Marty Feldman's program Marty (1968). Eventually, however, the writers were themselves collected to be the talent for their own program, Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969), which displayed a strange and completely absorbing blend of low farce and high-concept absurdist humor, and remains influential to this day.
After three seasons of the intensity of Monty Python, Cleese left the show, though he collaborated with one or more of the other Pythons for decades to come, including the Python movies released in the mid-70s to early 80s - Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982), and The Meaning of Life (1983). Cleese and then-wife Connie Booth collaborated in the legendary television series Fawlty Towers (1975), as the sharp-tongued, rude, bumbling yet somehow lovable proprietor of an English seaside hotel. Cleese based this character on a proprietor he had met while staying with the other Pythons at a hotel in Torquay, England. Only a dozen episodes were made, but each is truly hilarious, and he is still closely associated with the program to this day.
Meanwhile Cleese had established a production company, Video Arts, for clever business training videos in which he generally starred, which were and continue to be enormously successful in the English-speaking world. He continues to act prolifically in movies, including in the hit comedy A Fish Called Wanda (1988), in the Harry Potter series, and in the James Bond series as the new Q, starting with The World Is Not Enough (1999), in which he began as R before graduating to Q. Cleese also supplies his voice to numerous animated and video projects, and frequently does commercials.
Besides the infamous Basil Fawlty character, Cleese's other well-known trademark is his rendition of an English upper-class toff. He has a daughter with Connie Booth and a daughter with his second wife, Barbara Trentham.
Education and learning are important elements of his life - he was Rector of the University of Saint Andrews from 1973 until 1976, and continues to be a professor-at-large of Cornell University in New York. Cleese lives in Santa Barbara, California.- Writer
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Michael Palin is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter. He was one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python.
After the Monty Python television series ended in 1974, the Palin/Jones team worked on Ripping Yarns, an intermittent television comedy series broadcast over three years from 1976. In 1980, Palin co-wrote Time Bandits with Terry Gilliam. He also acted in the film. In 1984, he reunited with Terry Gilliam to appear in Brazil. He appeared in the comedy film A Fish Called Wanda (1988), for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.- Actor
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His father was a pilot during the second World War and was killed in action before Michael was born resulting in him being brought up by his mother, Doris, and Irish grandmother, Kathleen .His mother married a, Kent grocer when he was 4 but after his mother died when he was 21 he broke off all contact with him,, Michael was educated at Oakfield School in Dulwich and developed his singing skills as a chorister. At 12 he was picked by Benjamin Britten to sing with the English Opera Company, At 14 he was in children's films and at 15 he was in a school play where he was spotted by an agent and put into a radio programme during which he developed a relationship with hairdresser Patricia Maxwell and became engaged but then he met Gabrielle Lewis at a club where he was relaxing after a show. This resulted in his daughter Angelique being born to Patricia the same month that he married Gabrielle, and daughters Emm and Lucy, He divorced in 1975 and moved to America in the 80's In 1996 he was in the show EFX in Las Vegas and fell sustaining a high impact injury to a femur and hip.- Actor
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Christopher "Chris" O'Dowd (born 9 October, 1979) is an Irish actor and comedian best known for his role as Roy Trenneman in the Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd (2006). O'Dowd created and is starring in the Sky 1 television series Moone Boy (2012). He had a recurring role on the drama series Girls (2012) and starred in the television series Family Tree (2013). O'Dowd is also known for his films, most notably Bridesmaids (2011), This Is 40 (2012), The Sapphires (2012), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Calvary (2014), and St. Vincent (2014). He made his Broadway debut in the play adaptation of Of Mice and Men in 2014, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award.- Jean Lefebvre was born on 3 October 1919 in Valenciennes, Nord, France. He was an actor, known for Diabolique (1955), Mais où est donc passée la 7ème compagnie (1973) and The Gendarme of Saint-Tropez (1964). He was married to Brigitte Lerebours, Yori Bertin and Micheline Grasser. He died on 9 July 2004 in Marrakech, Morocco.
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Rowan Sebastian Atkinson was born on 6 January, 1955, in Consett, Co. Durham, UK, to Ella May (Bainbridge) and Eric Atkinson. His father owned a farm, where Rowan grew up with his two older brothers, Rupert and Rodney. He attended Newcastle University and Oxford University where he earned degrees in electrical engineering. During that time, he met screenwriter Richard Curtis, with whom he wrote and performed comedy revues.
Later, he co-wrote and appeared in Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979), which was a huge success and spawned several best-selling books. It won an International Emmy Award and the British Academy Award for "Best Light Entertainment Programme of 1980." He won the "British Academy Award" and was named "BBC Personality of the Year" for his performance in Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979).
Atkinson also appeared in several movies, including Dead on Time (1983), Pleasure at Her Majesty's (1976) (aka "Monty Python Meets Beyond the Fringe"), Never Say Never Again (1983), and The Tall Guy (1989). He played "Mr. Bean" in the TV series, Mr. Bean (1990) but, apart from that and Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979), he also appeared in several other series like Blackadder (1982) and Funny Business (1992), etc.
Atkinson enjoys nothing more than fast cars. He has two children, named Benjamin and Lily, with ex-wife Sunetra Sastry.- Actor
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Kunal Nayyar is an British actor. He moved from India to the US in 1999. He first moved to Portland, Oregon, to study business. He started acting in plays as a way of making new friends. He took acting classes, but he went on to graduate from the University of Portland with a degree in business, as something to fall back on. He then went on to get a master's degree in fine arts from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He did some work for the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, UK. He then landed his breakthrough role in The Big Bang Theory (2007) in 2007, just a year after graduating.- Actor
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Certainly one of France's supreme farceurs in the classic tradition, comedian Pierre Richard was born to an upper crust family with an embarrassing riches of middle names as he was christened Pierre Richard Maurice Charles Leopold Defays. Working and building up his trade at the Paris Music Hall in the early years, he appeared in small movie roles throughout most of the 60s. In the 70s, however, he aimed his genius directly towards film and succeeded beyond the wildest expectations. Directing and co-writing many of his slapstick vehicles, his characters often have taken on an hilariously guileless persona and, coupled with his innate gift for klutzy physical comedy, have become an audience favorite for nearly four decades. His superior work in Distracted (1970) and The Troubles of Alfred (1972) was immediately recognized and this led to the international crossover hit The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1972) in which Richard played a naive, innocent concert musician plucked by chance to become a superspy on a top secret mission. A potent association in the 1960s and 1970s with actor/producer/director Yves Robert and the 1980s with writer/director Francis Veber and actor Gérard Depardieu produced several comedy classics: Very Happy Alexander (1968), The Return of the Tall Blond Man (1974), La Chèvre (1981), The ComDads (1983) and The Fugitives (1986). Many of Richard's classic comedies, including The Toy (1976), have spawned Hollywood remakes and imitations, though most pale compared to the originals.- Actor
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Gérard Depardieu was born in Châteauroux, Indre, France, to Anne Jeanne Josèphe (Marillier) and René Maxime Lionel Depardieu, who was a metal worker and fireman. Young delinquent and wanderer in the past, Depardieu started his acting career at the small traveling theatre "Café de la Gare", along with Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou. After minor roles in cinema, at last, he got his chance in Bertrand Blier's Going Places (1974). That film established a new type of hero in the French cinema and the actor's popularity grew enormously. Later, he diversified his screen image and became the leading French actor of the 80s and 90s. He was twice awarded a César as Best Actor for The Last Metro (1980) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), also received an Oscar nomination for "Cyrano" and a number of awards at international film festivals. In 1996, he was distinguished by the highest French title of "Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur". He married Elisabeth Depardieu in 1971, and they divorced in 1996; she appeared with him in Jean de Florette (1986) and Manon of the Spring (1986); their children Guillaume Depardieu and Julie Depardieu are both actors.- Actor
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Windsor did 2 years teacher training in Bangor then taught History and English in the Elephant and Castle in London where he met Lynne, his future wife, who was a nurse, in the Welsh Club. By the time he was 32 they had 2 children and were living in Leek, in Staffordshire. He had always been keen on amateur dramatics and Lynne persuaded him to try the theatre. The casting director of the Royal Court Theatre got him into Cheltenham Reportary at £10 a week which started his show business career.- Actor
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The apocryphal biography of Fernand Contandin tells the invention of his artistic name Fernandel by his sister-in-law ("Voici le Fernand d'elles"). At the beginning of the thirties he became a typical actor of the comedy genre: popular, common, likable and with a concealed grain of drama. Marc Allégret was the director of his first successful film La meilleure bobonne (1931). He tried to work as director twice during World War II but was unsuccessful.- Actress
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Anémone was born on 9 August 1950 in Paris, France. She was an actress and writer, known for Lautrec (1998), The Grand Highway (1987) and Death in a French Garden (1985). She was married to Philippe Galland and X. She died on 30 April 2019 in Poitiers, Vienne, France.- Actor
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Nick Frost is an English actor, screenwriter and comedian. He is known for his work in the series of British comedic genre films The Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy: Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World's End (2013). He also co-starred in Paul (2011), with frequent collaborator and friend Simon Pegg.
Nicholas John "Nick" Frost is good friends with Simon Pegg and they have appeared alongside each other in several Movies. He resides with his half-Swedish wife, production executive Christina Frostin St Margarets, London. He previously lived in Finsbury Park, which was also the filming location for Shaun of the Dead. In a 2005 interview, Frost stated that he was brought up as a Catholic. He is a supporter of West Ham United, as well as being a rugby player, formerly playing for Barking RFC. On 22 June 2011, Frost's wife gave birth to a son.- Actor
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Paul Préboist was born on 21 July 1927 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. He was an actor, known for Béru et ces dames (1968), Les quatre Charlots mousquetaires (1974) and Les Misérables (1982). He died on 4 March 1997 in Paris, France.- Actor
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Urbanus was born on 7 July 1949 in Sint-Gertrudis-Pede, Flanders, Belgium. He is an actor and writer, known for Kattenoog - Het Geheim van de Griezelclub (2015), Urbanus Vertelt (2010) and Urbanus strips (1980). He has been married to Nadine Mignon since 1995. They have three children.- Actor
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André van Duin was born as Adrianus Marinus Kyvon on February 20th, 1947. At the age of 15 he sent letters to several TV networks, requesting an audition. He's always had the talent of amusing people, imitating celebrities and singing. Unfortunately every network turned him down, because he was too young. In 1964 he competed in a TV show called "Nieuwe oogst", in which young talented people got the chance to prove themselves. He won the contest and started appearing as a guest in a few shows. In 1965 he got the opportunity to do a television programme of his own; for the AVRO-network he did a show called "Een avondje TV met André". He also released his first two singles that year. André got more and more appearances on TV and in 1972 he also started working for the radio. Together with Ferry de Groot he did the "Dik Voormekaar Show" in 1973. It turned out to be very successful and also went on to be a TV show. In 1977, he became a character in a comicbook called "Een showboot vol heisa". Ten years later Toon van Driel created André's own comic book series. In 1981 André starred in his first movie Ik ben Joep Meloen (1981). A year later his second, De boezemvriend (1982) followed. After working for TROS Televisie for many years, he switched to a new channel, RTL 4. A decade of success would follow, with shows like André's Comedy Club (1998), mainly working together with Ron Brandsteder. In 2000, his radioshow "Dik Voormekaar" returned on the air at Radio 3FM, lasting three years. André returned to TROS Televisie in 2002. He is now working on a theatre programme.- Actor
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Marcello Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, Italy in 1924, but soon his family moved to Turin and then Rome. During WW2 he was sent to a German prison camp, but he managed to escape and hide in Venice. He debuted in films as an extra in Marionette (1939), then started working for the Italian department of "Eagle Lion Films" in Rome and joined a drama club, where he was discovered by director Luchino Visconti. In 1957 Visconti gave him the starring part in his Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation White Nights (1957) and in 1958 he was fine as a little thief in Mario Monicelli's comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). But his real breakthrough came in 1960, when Federico Fellini cast him as an attractive, weary-eyed journalist of the Rome jet-set in La Dolce Vita (1960); that film was the genesis of his "Latin lover" persona, which Mastroianni himself often denied by accepting parts of passive and sensitive men. He would again work with Fellini in several major films, like the exquisite 8½ (1963) (as a movie director who finds himself at a point of crisis) and the touching Ginger & Fred (1986) (as an old entertainer who appears in a TV show). He also appeared as a tired novelist with marital problems in Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (1961), as an impotent young man in Mauro Bolognini's Bell' Antonio (1960) , as an exiled prince in John Boorman's Leo the Last (1970), as a traitor in Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Allonsanfan (1974) and as a sensitive homosexual in love with a housewife in Ettore Scola's A Special Day (1977). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, for Divorce Italian Style (1961), A Special Day (1977), and Oci ciornie (1987). During the last decade of his life he worked with directors, like Theodoros Angelopoulos, Bertrand Blier and Raúl Ruiz, who gave him three excellent parts in Three Lives and Only One Death (1996). He died of pancreatic cancer in 1996.