Richard Bohringer

Biography

Richard Bohringer was born in Moulins, Allier, in January 1941, although some sources give 1942. A French actor who also worked as a singer and writer, he has held Senegalese nationality since 2002. He became one of the notable French screen actors of the 1980s after arriving at film work in his forties, and he is the father of actress Romane Bohringer.

The son of a French mother and a German father, he spent much of his childhood in the care of his maternal grandmother outside Paris, while his father was held as a prisoner after the war. He made his stage debut in the late 1960s, and his first feature was Gérard Brach's La Maison (1970). His breakthrough came with Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva (1981), followed by a steady run of roles across very different productions. He won two César Awards, one for supporting actor and one for best actor, and became a sought-after performer who worked repeatedly with Jean-Loup Hubert, Jean-Pierre Mocky and his friend Bernard Giraudeau. He appeared in Luc Besson's Subway (1985), Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) and Gérard Jugnot's Une époque formidable... (1991). In 1992 he shared the screen with his daughter Romane in The Accompanist, directed by Claude Miller.

His life included a long and difficult period marked by drug problems, money troubles and violent episodes, which he described in the book C'est beau une ville la nuit (1988). A film adaptation appeared in 2006. In the 1990s he released three albums of songs, and after a quieter stretch on screen he returned to the stage with one-man shows and plays, some alongside Romane. From 2009 he fought hepatitis C, an illness that kept him off film sets. His legacy lies mainly in a distinctive presence in French cinema of his era, in roles that often explored marginal lives and raw emotional intensity.

Key films

• Diva (1981): his breakthrough role of the decade, which brought him to wider audiences.
• Subway (1985): a collaboration with Luc Besson on one of the period's most popular films.
• The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989): a Peter Greenaway production and one of his best-known international roles.
• The Accompanist (1992): directed by Claude Miller, it brought Richard Bohringer and his daughter Romane together on screen.
• Tango (1993): directed by Patrice Leconte, it came at a time when his film work became more sporadic.