Birth name
     Jean-Pierre Grumbach
Date of birth
     20 October 1917, Paris, France

Mini biography

Jean-Pierre Melville (20 October 1917 - 2 August 1973)

(born Jean-Pierre Grumbach) was an amateur filmmaker as a teenager who, after the start of World War II, began making his own independent short and feature films.

He hit his stride in the '50s with his memorable adaptation of Jean Cocteau's novel, Les Enfants Terribles, and, over the next 20 years, specialized in intelligent and exciting crime films, most notably Bob le Flambeur, Le Doulos (aka The Finger Man), Le Samouraï, Le Cercle Rouge, and Un Flic.

“I believe that you must be madly in love with cinema to create films. You also need a huge cinematic baggage.”

Melville also acted in his own Deux Hommes Dans Manhattan, as well as Cocteau's Orphee, Jean-Luc Godard's À Bout de Souffle (aka Breathless), and Claude Chabrol's Landru (aka Bluebeard). He died in 1973.

Director - Selected filmography

1. Un Flic | A Cop (1972)
   
2. The Red Circle | Le Cercle rouge (1970)
   
3. Le Samouraï (1967)
   
4. Le deuxième souffle | Second Breath (1966)
   
5. Le Doulos | The Snitch | The Finger Man (1962)
   
6. Bob le flambeur (1956)