Introduction
Pierre Renoir (21 March 1885 – 11 March 1952) was a French stage and film actor. He was the son of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and elder brother of the film director Jean Renoir. He is also noted for being the first actor to play Georges Simenon's character Inspector Jules Maigret.
Life and career
Pierre Renoir was born on 21 March 1885 in Paris, on 18 rue Houdon, about a hundred meters from place Pigalle, to painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
For his best remembered role, as Jėricho the ragman in Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis,1945), he was cast at short notice to replace the collaborator Robert Le Vigan; Jėricho's scenes had to be reshot after Le Vigan fled. Renoir was briefly the director of the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris, taking over after the death of Louis Jouvet in 1951. Pierre Renoir's son was the cinematographer Claude Renoir (1913–93), who is not to be confused with another brother, also called Claude Renoir, known as 'Coco', (1901–69).
Selected filmography
- La Digue (1911)
- The Agony of the Eagles (1933)
- Madame Bovary (1934)
- The Citadel of Silence (1937)
- La Marseillaise (1938)
- Mollenard (1938)
- The Patriot (1938)
- Personal Column (1939)
- Coral Reefs (1939)
- Serge Panine (1939)
- Le Pavillon brûle (1941)
- The Trump Card (1942)
- Traveling Light (1944)
- St. Val's Mystery (1945)
- Les Enfants du paradis (1945)
- Special Mission (1946)
- The Captain (1946)
- Dr. Knock (1951)
- Judgement of God (1952)