Known For
Acting
Born
May 24, 1931
Died
Sep 21, 2020
Place of Birth
Paris, France
Credits
211 titles
Michael Lonsdale
Biography
Michael Edward Lonsdale Crouch (24 May 1931 – 21 September 2020), commonly known as Michael Lonsdale and sometimes as Michel Lonsdale, was a French-British actor and author who appeared in over 180 films and television shows. He is often known in the English-speaking world for his roles as the villain Hugo Drax in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker, deputy police commissioner Claude Lebel in The Day of the Jackal (1973), The Abbot in The Name of the Rose (1986) and Dupont d'Ivry in The Remains of the Day (1993). Lonsdale was born in Paris, the natural son of British Army officer Edward Lonsdale Crouch and Simone Calderon (née Béraud). He was brought up initially on the island of Jersey, then in London from 1935, and later, during the Second World War, in Casablanca, Morocco. He returned to Paris to study painting in 1947, but was drawn into the world of acting instead, first appearing on stage at the age of 24. Lonsdale was bilingual, and appeared in both English-language and French-language productions. He appeared in a starring role with Roger Moore in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker. and with Sean Connery, in the 1986 film The Name of the Rose. He would later appear in Munich (2005), a film that also starred another Bond, Daniel Craig. In February 2011, he won a César Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Of Gods and Men. Lonsdale was also the author of ten books. A practising Roman Catholic, he was close to the Emmanuel Community. In his 2016 memoir Le Dictionnaire de Ma Vie, Lonsdale revealed he had fallen for Delphine Seyrig, having met her as a student in Tania Balachova's acting classes at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in 1947. He wrote that "it was her or nothing", which was why he never married. Lonsdale died in Paris on 21 September 2020, aged 89. Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Lonsdale, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
Filmography
The Life of Mirrors
African Glory
Christopher Columbus
The Outsider
Narrator (Voice)
An Oral History of: The Name of the Rose
Self (archive footage)
Le Fantôme de Laurent Terzieff
Self
Degas and I
Edgar Degas
Salvador Dalí: Génie tragi-comique
Narrator
Bazin's Film
Narrator
Sculpt
The Mysteries of Paris: Jacques Rivette's Out 1 Revisited
Self
Jean-Marie Serreau, découvreur de théâtres
Self
Les Filles au Moyen-Âge
Daniel
The First, the Last
Jean-Berchmans
The Visit
Self
J.R.R. Tolkien: Designer of Worlds
(voice)
N: The Madness Of Reason
Narrator
Maestro
Cedric Rovère
Rosenn
(voice)
Le Renard jaune
Jean Virno
Gebo and the Shadow
Gebo
Veilleurs dans la nuit - Une journée monastique à l'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux
Narrateur
The Cardboard Village
Old Priest
Free Men
Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit
Hitler in Hollywood
Michael Lonsdale
Titeuf
Le psy (voice)
Of Gods and Men
Luc
You'll Miss Me
Max
Agora
Theon
Au siècle de Maupassant, contes et nouvelles du XIXe
Le Grand Loustalot
The Man from London
Kocsmáros (voice)
Le Silence de l'épervier
Antoine Carsac
Les amants cinéma
Self
To Each His Own Cinema
The old blind man (segment "Le Don")
Heartbeat Detector
Mathias Jüst
Go West: A Lucky Luke Adventure
Bartleby (voice)
The Last Mistress
le vicomte Prony
Les Mains d'Andréa
Goya's Ghosts
Inquisitor General
Jeanne, à petits pas
Louis
Munich
Papa
Gentille
Jean
The Separation
Paul Doumer
Bye Bye Blackbird
Robert
The Perfume of the Lady in Black
Professor Stangerson
Invisible
Le gardien
Under a False Name
David
Adieu
Serge
Five Times Two
Bernard
Le Furet
Don Salvadore
The Mystery of the Yellow Room
Stangerson