Henri Verneuil

Henri Verneuil 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.

Verneuil was born Ashot Malakian to Armenian parents in Rodosto, East Thrace, Turkey. In 1924, when Ashot was a little child his family fled to Marseille in France, to escape persecution after the Armenian Genocide. He later recounted his childhood experience in the novel Mayrig, which he dedicated to his mother and made into a 1991 film with the same name, which was followed by a sequel, 588 Rue Paradis, the following year.

Verneuil entered the Ecole Nationale d'Arts et Metiers in Aix-en-Provence in 1942. After graduation, he worked as a journalist, then became editor of Horizon Armenian magazine. In 1947, Verneuil managed to convince the established European film actor Fernandel to appear in his first film. 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 Funes has a small role in one of his films. 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.