Robert Dalban

Biography

Robert Dalban (born Gaston Paul Barré in Celles-sur-Belle, 1903 – 1987) was a French actor whose career spanned the stage, film and television. Beginning in the theatre at sixteen, he became one of the most familiar supporting faces of French cinema over several decades.

Before turning to the screen he worked in neighbourhood theatres, operettas and revues, and in the early 1920s toured the United States with Sarah Bernhardt. Gaby Morlay encouraged him toward film, and his first screen appearance came in 1934. Over the following decades he appeared in more than two hundred films, mostly as policemen, villains and colourful side characters, working with Clouzot, Duvivier and Delannoy.

In 1950 he was chosen after an MGM casting call to voice Clark Gable in the French version of Gone with the Wind. His role as Jean in Georges Lautner's Les Tontons flingueurs brought him his widest fame, and he made more than ten films with that director. He died in 1987 of a heart attack while in a restaurant on the Champs-Élysées.

Key films

• Quai des Orfèvres (1947): a car thief in Clouzot's police thriller.
• Manon (1949): the hotel keeper in Clouzot's drama.
• Les Diaboliques (1955): the mechanic in Clouzot's thriller.
• Les Tontons flingueurs (1963): Jean, the role that brought him the most fame.
• La Boum (1980): Serge the waiter in Claude Pinoteau's teen comedy.