Pierre Clémenti

Pierre Clémenti
File:Pierre Clementi.jpg
Born	Pierre André Clémenti (1942-09-28)28 September 1942 Paris, Occupied France
Died	Paris, France
Nationality	French
Occupation	Actor
Children	Balthazar Clémenti and Valentin Clémenti

Pierre André Clémenti (28 September 1942 – 27 December 1999) was a French actor.

Life and career

Born in Paris to an unknown father and Rose Clémenti, a Corsican concierge whose surname he took, Clémenti had a difficult childhood and took refuge in literature and the theatre. He studied drama and began his acting career in the theatre. He secured his first minor screen roles in Yves Allégret's Jack of Spades ("Chien de pique", 1960), performing alongside Eddie Constantine. Possibly his best remembered role was as the gangster lover/client of the bourgeois prostitute (Catherine Deneuve) in Belle de jour (1967) directed by Luis Buñuel, in whose other film The Milky Way (1969) he played the Devil. He worked with several other European directors, including highly regarded films of the era, such as The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963), Pigsty (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1969) and The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970, and Bertolucci's Partner, 1968). Other directors he worked with include Liliana Cavani, Glauber Rocha, Miklós Jancsó, Jacques Rivette, and Philippe Garrel.

In 1972, Clémenti's career was derailed after he was sentenced to prison for allegedly possessing or using drugs. Due to insufficient evidence, he was released after 17 months; later he wrote a book about his time in prison. After his release he played the ever-optimistic sailor of the Potemkin in Dusan Makavejev's Sweet Movie (1974) and the role of Pablo, the seductive saxophone player, in Fred Haines's Steppenwolf (also 1974) adapted from the novel by Hermann Hesse. Throughout his career he continued to be active in the theatre.

Clémenti was also involved with the French underground film movement, directing several of his own films which often featured fellow underground filmmakers and actors. Visa de censure no X was an experimental work composed of two films. New Old was a feature-length work starring Viva released in 1978. He went on to direct La Révolution ce n'est qu'un début, continuons le combat, In the Shadow of the Blue Rascal and Sun.

He married actress Margareth Clémenti (née Le-Van, 1948), mother of his son Balthazar, born in July 1965. Later he was married to Nadine, mother of his second child, Valentin Clémenti-Arnoult.

He died of liver cancer in 1999.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role(s)	Director(s)	Note(s)
1960	Jack of Spades	Paco	Yves Allégret
1963	The Leopard	Francesco Paolo	Luchino Visconti
1967	Belle de Jour	Marcel	Luis Buñuel
1968	Benjamin	Benjamin	Michel Deville
1969	Pigsty	Young cannibal	Pier Paolo Pasolini
1970	The Conformist	Lino	Bernardo Bertolucci
1972	The Inner Scar		Philippe Garrel
1981	Le Pont du Nord	Julien	Jacques Rivette
1987	Un bambino di nome Gesù	Sefir	Franco Rossi

Bibliography

• 1973 Carcere italiano. Milano: Il Formichiere.
• 2005 Quelques messages personnels. Paris: Gallimard. ISBN 978-2-07-030748-7
• 2007 Pensieri dal carcere. Fagnano Alto: il Sirente. ISBN 978-88-87847-12-3

External links

• Pierre Clémenti at the Internet Movie Database
• DVD Pierre Clémenti film-maker
• Pierre Clémenti, cinéaste, by Doris Peternel