Louis de Funès

Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza was born 31 July 1914 and spent decades honing a physical comedy style built on manic energy and a face that could twist through dozens of expressions in seconds. Much of his best work came under director Jean Girault, playing conservative petit bourgeois types: characters who fawned over authority and crushed anyone beneath them, a dynamic that resonated across changing Western societies in the 1960s. Off-screen he was the opposite — notoriously shy, reserved, a devout Catholic. The films made him a household name across continental Europe, the former E…