Roger Hanin (born Roger Levy, 20 October 1925 – 11 February 2015) was a French

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

and

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

, best known for playing the title role in the TV

police drama The police procedural, police show, or police crime drama is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasises the investigative procedure of police officers, police detectives, or law enforcement agencies as the protagonists, as ...

, '' Navarro''.

Career

Roger Hanin was born in 1925 in

Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...

, Algeria as Roger Lévy to Jewish parents. His brother-in-law was

François Mitterrand François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was a French politician and statesman who served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, the longest holder of that position in the history of France. As a former First ...

(the former

President of France The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic (), is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency is the supreme magistracy of the country, the po ...

), whose wife,

Danielle Danielle is a modern French female variant of the male name Daniel, meaning "The God(dess)" in the French language. The name "Daniel" originates from the Hebrew Bible and is associated with the prophet Daniel. In Hebrew, the name is composed of ...

, was the sister of Hanin's wife, Christine Gouze-Rénal. With

Claude Chabrol Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (''nouvelle vague'') group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues an ...

, Hanin co-wrote the scripts for a pair of

spy film The spy film, also known as the spy thriller, is a film genre, genre of film that deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way (such as the adaptations of John le Carré) or as a basis for fantasy (such as many Jame ...

s in the mid-1960s. Chabrol directed '' Code Name: Tiger'' (1964) and '' Our Agent Tiger'' (1965), both featuring Hanin in the starring role of secret agent ''Le Tigre''. From the late 1970s, Hanin enjoyed newfound popularity in France thanks to his roles in ''Le Coup de Sirocco'', a dramedy about the

pieds-noirs The (; ; : ) are an ethno-cultural group of people of French and other European descent who were born in Algeria during the period of French colonial rule from 1830 to 1962. Many of them departed for mainland France during and after the ...

exodus in Metropolitan France and ''Le Grand pardon'', a gangster film about the French Jewish pied-noir mafia. Both films were directed by

Alexandre Arcady Alexandre Arcady (born 17 March 1947) is a French actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Life and career Alexandre Arcady was born in Algiers, Algeria. He emigrated to France at the age of fifteen. His son is filmmaker Alexandre Aja. ...

. From 1989 to 2007, he played the title character in the TV series '' Navarro''.

Awards and honours

His 1985 film, '' Hell Train'', was entered into the 14th Moscow International Film Festival where it won a Special Prize. In September 2000 he was awarded a place on the honourable list of the National Order of Merit of Algeria. He said: "I always refused decorations. This is the first time that I agree, but it's also the last because I want it to be unique."

Filmography

Actor

Producer

*''Soleil'' (1997) with Marianne Sägebrecht

References

External links

* 1925 births 2015 deaths Place of death missing Male actors from Algiers Algerian Jews Jewish French male actors French male film actors French male television actors French film directors Pieds-noirs {{france-film-actor-1920s-stub