Michael Lonsdale

Info

Role

Actor | Writer

Date of birth

05/24/1931

Date of death

09/21/2020

Place of birth

Paris, France

Awards

1 nomination

BAFTA Awards
BAFTA Awards

1 nomination

Michael Lonsdale

Biography

Tall, bearded, heavy-set Anglo-French character actor, best known internationally for playing Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel in The Day of the Jackal (1973) and Bond villain Hugo Drax in Moonraker (1979). The son of an English army officer (Edward Lonsdale-Crouch) and a Franco-Irish mother (Simone Béraud), he was born in Paris and spent his early childhood in England. The family moved to Morocco in 1939 where Edward found work in the fertilizer trade (he was later imprisoned by the Vichy government for political reasons). Michael returned to France in 1947 where he met actor/director Roger Blin who awakened his interest in the dramatic arts. Following acting studies, Michael made his theatrical debut at 24 and appeared on screen for the first time a year later, for much of his career billed as 'Michel' Lonsdale. Having toiled for over a decade in smallish supporting roles, he received his first major critical acclaim in two films by François Truffaut (The Bride Wore Black (1968) and Stolen Kisses (1968)). Though primarily active in French cinema, the bilingual Lonsdale made occasional (but often memorable) forays into English-language productions, his first as a reporter in Fred Zinnemann's Behold a Pale Horse (1964). Subsequent parts have included a titled landowner who sets in motion the Caravan to Vaccares (1974), a CIA agent in Enigma (1982) and a Swiss banker in The Holcroft Covenant (1985). James Ivory cast him in two of his films consecutively as a French delegate in The Remains of the Day (1993) and as King Louis XVI in Jefferson in Paris (1995). Lonsdale also had a prominent role as The Abbot who commissions the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville (Sean Connery) to investigate the murder of a monk in Jean-Jacques Annaud's Italian-German-French co-production of Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose (1986) . By and large, it is for his powerhouse performance as Roger Moore's megalomaniacal antagonist Sir Hugo Drax in Moonraker for which Lonsdale is likely to be most remembered. He received a BAFTA nomination for his role in The Day of the Jackal but only achieved major acting honors in 2011, winning a César Award as best supporting actor for Of Gods and Men (2010). Lonsdale's career could well be described as eclectic. In 1972, he co-founded (with French composer Michel Puig) the Théâtre musical des Ulis, a musical theater company which was subsidised by the French government. The soft-spoken actor also lent his voice to radio recordings and audio books. He had a reputation as a painter of some renown and authored or co-authored more than twenty works of fiction and non-fiction.

Known For

Munich

Munich

7.9
7.9
Ronin

Ronin

7.7
7.7
Moonraker

Moonraker

6.4
6.4

Filmography

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Movies

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Munich

Munich

7.9
7.9
Acting
Role: Papa
Ronin

Ronin

7.7
7.7
Acting
Role: Jean-Pierre
Acting
Role: Dupont D'Ivry
Acting
Role: Lebel
Acting
Role: The Abbot
Moonraker

Moonraker

6.4
6.4
Acting
Role: Drax
Agora

Agora

7.4
7.4
Acting
Role: Theon
Acting
Role: Garth Jones
Goya's Ghosts

Goya's Ghosts

7.0
7.0
Acting
Role: Inquisitor General
The Trial

The Trial

7.3
7.3
Acting
Role: Priest
Acting
Role: Jean Bermans
Of Gods and Men

Of Gods and Men

7.2
7.2
Acting
Role: Luc
Stolen Kisses

Stolen Kisses

7.4
7.4
Acting
Role: Georges Tabard
Acting
Role: Father Henri
Acting
Role: Rene Morane
Five Times Two

Five Times Two

6.6
6.6
Acting
Role: Bernard
Mr. Klein

Mr. Klein

7.5
7.5
Acting
Role: Pierre
Hibernatus

Hibernatus

6.6
6.6
Acting
Role: Le professeur Édouard Loriebat
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Series

0% (You've watched 0 of 40)

Shows

0% (You've watched 0 of 77)

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