Michel Louis Edmond Galabru (October 27, 1922 - January 4, 2016) was a veteran French stage and screen character actor and theatre director.
He first wanted to become a professional soccer player, but his father forced him to take up law school. During World War II, he was drafted in the STO (the mandatory labor service of Vichy France, which sent workers to Germany) and ended up in a German disciplinary camp in Yugoslavia for "sabotage". Tito's Partisans freed him when they gradually retook the country, and he fought in their ranks as a political commissioner for the remainder of the war then came back to France.
After the war, he became one of the most prolific French actors of all time, competing for the record of most credits in his career as he appeared in about 300 works on film and television, from 1948 to 2015, most of it in supporting or bit roles. He's always admitted that the majority of his roles were "bread and butter jobs", but that didn't prevent him from being a nationally beloved performer. He's most fondly remembered by the French public for his hammy comedic parts, most famously alongside his longtime friend Louis de Funès, although he had much more range than the latter and was equally at ease in dramatic roles.
He owned a theatre building, the Théâtre Montmartre-Galabru, in Paris.
Some notable works he appeared in:
- The Three Musketeers (TV film, 1959) as Monsieur Bonacieux
- Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez (1964) as Chief Adjudant Jérôme Gerber
- Le Gendarme à New York (1965)
- Le Gendarme se marie (1968)
- Le Gendarme en balade (1970)
- Le Gendarme et les extra-terrestres (1979)
- Le Gendarme et les Gendarmettes (1982)
- The Little Bather (1968) as Scipion
- Jo (1971) as Tonelotti
- The Judge and the Assassin (1976) as Joseph Bouvier
- La Cage aux folles (1978) as deputy Simon Charrier
- La Cage aux folles 2 (1980)
- La Cage aux folles 3 (1985)
- Cop or Hood (1979) as Commissioner Grimaud
- The Miser (1980) as Maître Jacques
- Gramps Is in the Resistance (1983) as Jean-Robert "Papy" Bourdelle
- The French Revolution (1989) as Jean-Sifrein Maury
- Uranus (1990) as Monglat
- Asterix & Obelix Take on Caesar (1999) as Vitalstatistix
- Le Silence de la mer (2004) as André Larosière
- Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) as Vlad (French dub)
Tropes applying to his roles:
- Bit Character: More than half of his total of movie appearances were short, if not veering on Spear Carrier.
- Da Chief: As Chief Adjudant Gerber in the Gendarme de Saint-Tropez films, who has little patience for Cruchot's antics.
- Ham-to-Ham Combat: Inevitably happened whenever he was paired with Louis de Funès, and he was more than up to the task.
- He Really Can Act:
- Most of the films he played in were comedies, where he impersonates ridiculous and stupid authority figures. In the historical period drama The Judge and the Assassin (1976), he played an ambiguous psychopath and he won the César Award for Best Actor.
- His later dramatic part as the grandfather in Le Silence de la mer (2004) was also praised.
- Those Two Actors:
- He appeared in a number of films alongside his friend Louis de Funès. Sometimes, he was cast at De Funès' own request when the latter felt he had to Wag the Director.
- He was also often paired with Jean Lefebvre, including the early Gendarme films.
- What Could Have Been: He was one of the actors considered for the role of the Abbott in 1986's The Name of the Rose before the role went to Michael Lonsdale.
