Birth name
     Ashot Malakian
Date of birth
     15 October 1920, Rodosto, Ottoman Turkey
Date of death
     11 January 2002, Bagnolet, Seine-Saint-Denis

Mini biography

Henri Verneuil _{(October 15, 1920 - January 11,2002)}

Henri Verneuil (born Ashot Malakian; 15 October 1920 – 11 January 2002) was a French-Armenian playwright and filmmaker, who made a successful career in France.

He was nominated for Oscar and Palme d'Or awards, and won Locarno International Film Festival, Edgar Allan Poe Awards, French Legion of Honor, Golden Globe Award, French National Academy of Cinema and Honorary Cesar awards.

According to one obituary:

For exactly 40 years, the prolific Verneuil made movies as mainstream and commercial as any to be found in America or Britain. In his best period – the 1950s and 1960s – he delivered films in the "tradition of quality" so despised by the Nouvelle Vague. Many of them proved excellent vehicles for old-timers Jean Gabin and Fernandel, and newcomers such as Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon.

In 1947, Verneuil managed to convince the established European film actor Fernandel to appear in his first film.

If there are British cinemagoers who still associate French films with notions of the arty and the intellectual, then the oeuvre of director Henri Verneuil should serve as a contradictory example.

In 1951 he directed his first feature, the black comedy La Table aux crevés. His second film, Forbidden Fruit (1952), based on a Georges Simenon novel, was even more acclaimed.

Later he also directed other movie stars including Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura (all together acting for him in "Le clan des siciliens" in 1969), Jean-Paul Belmondo ("Le Corps de mon ennemi" in 1976 and other films), Omar Sharif, Claudia Cardinale (Mayrig), Yves Montand and Michèle Morgan. Verneuil has filmed almost all the great figures of French cinema, with the exception of Bourvil, as even Louis de Funès has a small role in one of his films.

After the American experience (he was called the "most American of French directors"), in 1969 Verneuil "found" France. He was awarded a César in 1996 and he was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 2000. He died at Bagnolet, a suburb of Paris, in 2002.

The opening of the seventh annual Golden Apricot International Film Festival in Yerevan paid tribute to Verneuil. His son, television director Patrick Malakian, who reclaimed the name of his historical ancestors, received the posthumous award, the Parajanov's Thaler, for his father's contribution to cinema.

Director - Selected filmography

1. The Sicilian Clan | Le clan des Siciliens (1969)