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 Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Union, Iran, Turkey, and Israel, though America saw him only once, in 1973's The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, nominated for a Golden Globe and remembered mostly for a dance scene. He died 27 January 1983, leaving two museums and a box-office record in France that still stands.