Biography
Jean-Pierre Melville, born Jean-Pierre Grumbach on 20 October 1917 in Paris, was a French film director, screenwriter and occasional actor. He died in Paris on 2 August 1973. He adopted the professional name Melville after the American author Herman Melville.
Melville served in the French Resistance during the Second World War. He directed Le Silence de la mer (1949), Bob le Flambeur (1956), Léon Morin, prêtre (1961), Le Doulos (1962), Le Deuxième Souffle (1966), Le Samouraï (1967), Army of Shadows (1969), Le Cercle Rouge (1970) and Un Flic (1972). He appeared as Parvulesco the Writer in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960).
He founded his own production company after the war and built a studio in Paris. His films often centred on crime or wartime themes.
