Max-Gérard Houry Tannenbaum, better known as Gérard Oury (29 April 1919 – 20 July 2006) was a French film director, actor and writer.
As an actor, he joined the Comédie-Française troupe just before World War II. Being Jewish (of Russian descent on his father's side), he fled the country to Switzerland during the war, then came back and performed in a string of supporting roles after 1945. He became a film director in 1959 and had his first success in 1961 with Crime Does Not Pay (Le crime ne paie pas).
Pairing Bourvil and Louis de Funès in the one-two-punch of The Sucker and La Grande Vadrouille in 1965 and 1966 was the lightning in a bottle that made him one of the most commercially successful French comedy directors (or French directors period) of his time (if not of all time). Other classics like The Brain, Delusions of Grandeur and The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob followed.
He was married to actress Michèle Morgan from 1960 to his death (amusingly, she played Joséphine de Beauharnais in a film once, while he played Napoléon Bonaparte in two unrelated films). He had a daughter (not from Morgan), Danièle Thompson, who became a screenwriter and assisted him on the writing of a number of his films.
Selected filmography:
As director and writer:- The Sucker (1965)
- La Grande Vadrouille (1966)
- The Brain (1969)
- Delusions of Grandeur (1971)
- The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973)
- The Umbrella Coup (1980)
- Ace of Aces (1982)
- Lévy and Goliath (1987)
- Babette Goes to War (1959)
Tropes & Trivia in his works:
- Associated Composer: Vladimir Cosma scored a number of his films.
- Author Appeal: Three of his comedies involve Jewish characters (The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, Ace of Aces and Lévy and Goliath) and the religion has some importance in the plot of at least two of them. Oury was non-observant but was nonetheless interested in the gaps between Orthodox Judaism, Liberal Judaism and non-observance. He knew nothing about Orthodox Judaism until he met a (liberal) rabbi, Josy Eisenberg, who then became his consultant on films bringing up the religion.
- Author Tract: Through some of his films, he advocated for religious tolerance (both inside religions and outside) and reconciliation against bigotry, antisemitism, racism etc.
- Odd Couple: His comedies often involve two characters who couldn't be more different and are forced to stick together and cooperate.
- What Could Have Been:
- He wanted to reunite Louis de Funès and Bourvil once more with Delusions of Grandeur, but had to recast the character of Blaze with Yves Montand following Bourvil's death in 1970.
- Oury and de Funès were to collaborate further on Le Crocodile in 1974. Unfortunately, it was at this time that de Funès' health worsened with his myocardial infarctions. The film was never made, De Funès considerably slowed down his film output, and he and Oury never collaborated again.
