--- name: "Pierre Fresnay" canonical: "https://film.one/person/pierre-fresnay" roles: ["Actor"] born: "3 April 1897" died: "9 January 1975" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-19T23:55:18.466713+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Pierre Fresnay Actor. Born 3 April 1897 in Paris, France. Died 9 January 1975. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 3 April 1897, Paris, France - **Died:** 9 January 1975 - **Also known as:** Пьер Френе, Pierre Jules Louis Laudenbach - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Fresnay, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q201483, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0294382/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/11546 ## Fi1m on Pierre Fresnay > Pierre Fresnay was the French cinema's officer class: a Comédie-Française voice, a straight back and a face that gives away almost nothing, which is why the little it gives away counts. Renoir used him better than anyone else did. Captain de Boëldieu wears a monocle and white gloves in a German prison camp and speaks to his men as if reading from a card. That is how Pierre Fresnay enters *Grand Illusion* (1937), and for a while it looks like a joke at his expense. Jean Gabin's Maréchal, hands in his pockets and cap pushed back, is the man we are meant to like, and the two do not like each other. Fresnay never asks for our sympathy. He keeps the back straight and the vowels clipped and lets the film come round to him. The voice was made at the Comédie-Française, where he arrived in 1915 and played eighty roles before leaving in 1927. Success on stage as Marius in Pagnol's play in 1929 took him into *Marius* (1931), then a part for Hitchcock in 1934, then Renoir. Through the forties he was Henri-Georges Clouzot's man twice, as Commissaire Wens in *The Murderer Lives at Number 21* (1942) and as Doctor Germain in *Le Corbeau* (1943), and by *Monsieur Vincent* (1947) he was playing a saint. Officers, inspectors, doctors, saints, scientists, composers: French cinema knew what to do with him, and it was usually to put him in charge of something. What he does that other actors do not is speak. The diction is exact without being fussy, every consonant where it should be, and it lets him play authority without raising his voice; a Fresnay character tells you what will happen next and you believe him. The danger is plain. A man that composed can turn into a piece of furniture, and there are stretches of *Grand Illusion* where Boëldieu is closer to an idea of an aristocrat than to a person. Renoir knows this and uses it: the film needs one man who is all surface so that it can ask what a surface is for. We expected to find him absurd and we did not, and it was the gloves that did it. He wears them as if they were still required somewhere, and the longer the film goes on the less funny that becomes, for reasons we will not describe. Gabin gets the warmth of the film and Marcel Dalio gets its generosity. Fresnay gets the thing nobody else in it could have played, a man doing his duty to a world that has already gone. He directed one film himself, in 1941, and ran the Théâtre de la Michodière with Yvonne Printemps, his most frequent co-star, until 1974. We have only the one review to send you to, and it is the right one. See *Grand Illusion* first, for him and for everyone around him, and notice how little he has to do to hold his end of it. ## Biography Pierre Fresnay, born Pierre Jules Louis Laudenbach, was a French stage and film actor. Encouraged by his uncle, the actor Claude Garry, he trained at the Paris Conservatoire and joined the Comédie-Française as a pensionnaire in 1915, later becoming a sociétaire before leaving in 1927. He appeared in more than 130 plays and over 70 films. Fresnay is known for his stage and screen performances as Marius in Marcel Pagnol's trilogy, including the films *Marius* (1931), *Fanny* (1932) and *César* (1936). He played Captain de Boëldieu in Jean Renoir's *Grand Illusion* (1937) and appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's *The Man Who Knew Too Much* (1934) and Henri-Georges Clouzot's *Le Corbeau* (1943). He maintained a long professional partnership with actress Yvonne Printemps, with whom he appeared in several films between the 1930s and 1950s. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, britannica.com, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Grand Illusion* (1937), Fi1m 92, as Captain de Boëldieu — [page](https://film.one/film/grand-illusion.md) ## Complete filmography (64) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Clock Head* (1970), as Tête d'horloge - *God Chose Paris* (1969), as Narrator - *Le Grand Secret* (1961), Actor - *The Old Guard* (1960), as Baptiste Talon, retired SNCF employee - *The Thousandth Window* (1960), as Armand Vallin - *The Dreadful* (1959), as César Dandieu - *So Much Love Lost* (1958), as Joseph Andrieu - *Et ta sœur…* (1958), as Bastien - *A Bomb for a Dictator* (1957), as Luis Vargas - *The Ostrich Has Two Eggs* (1957), as Hippolyte Barjus - *L'Homme aux clés d'or* (1956), as Antoine Fournier - *The Aristocrats* (1955), as Marquis de Maubrun et maire - *The Fugitives* (1955), as Lieutenant Pierre Keller, instituteur - *The Unfrocked One* (1954), as Maurice Morand - *Napoleon Road* (1953), as Edouard Martel - *Dr. Schweitzer* (1952), as Dr. Albert Schweitzer - *Perfectionist* (1951), as Professor Louis Delage - *Trip to America* (1951), as Gaston Fournier - *Amazing Monsieur Fabre* (1951), as M. Fabre - *God Needs Men* (1950), as Thomas Gourvennec - *Justice Is Done* (1950), as Narrator (uncredited) - *Paris Waltz* (1950), as Jacques Offenbach - *The Century Is Fifty* (1950), as Narrator (voice) - *At the Grand Balcony* (1949), as Carbot - *Just Out* (1949), as Moscat - *Barry* (1949), as Le père Théotime - *Convicted* (1948), as Jean Séverac, le mari d'Hélène - *Monsieur Vincent* (1947), as Vincent de Paul - *Tainted* (1946), as Sauval - *Devil's Daughter* (1946), as Ludovic Mercier / Saget - *The Traveler Without Luggage* (1944), as Gaston - *I Am with You* (1943), as François Laferrière - *Le Corbeau* (1943), as Le docteur Rémy Germain - *L'Escalier sans fin* (1943), as Pierre - *Carnival of Sinners* (1943), as Roland Brissot - *The Murderer Lives at Number 21* (1942), as Commissaire Wens - *The Newspaper Falls at Five O'Clock* (1942), as Pierre Rabaud - *Strangers in the House* (1942), as Le narrateur (uncredited) - *The Chain Breaker* (1941), as Marcus - *The Last One of the Six* (1941), as Commissaire Wens - *The Duel* (1941), as Abbot Daniel Maurey · Director - *The Phantom Wagon* (1939), as David Holm - *Three Waltzes* (1938), as Octave, Philippe & Gérard de Chalencey - *Adrienne Lecouvreur* (1938), Actor - *S.O.S. Mediterranean* (1938), as Commander Lestailleur - *Chéri-Bibi* (1938), as Francis aka 'Chéri-Bibi' - *The Puritan* (1938), as Le commissaire Lavan - *La Bataille silencieuse* (1937), as Bordier - *Grand Illusion* (1937), as Captain de Boëldieu — Fi1m 92, [page](https://film.one/film/grand-illusion.md) - *Street of Shadows* (1937), as le capitaine Georges Carrère - *César* (1936), as Marius Ollivier - *Under Western Eyes* (1936), as Razumov - *The Novel of a Poor Young Man* (1936), as Maxime Hauterive de Champcey - *Crimson Dynasty* (1935), as Raoul Vignerte - *The Man Who Knew Too Much* (1934), as Louis Bernard - *Camille* (1934), as Armand Duval - *Âme de clown* (1933), as Jack - *Fanny* (1932), as Marius Olivier - *Marius* (1931), as Marius Ollivier, fils de César - *Ça aussi !... c'est Paris* (1930), Actor - *A Foolish Maiden* (1929), Actor - *Les amours de Rocambole* (1924), as Jean Robert - *Les premières armes de Rocambole* (1924), as Jean Robert - *The Black Diamond* (1922), as Bouvier ## Gallery - ![Pierre Fresnay](https://film.one/media/person/1230774/gallery-9703c0bbea0e.jpg) Pierre Fresnay — Studio Harcourt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Fresnay_Harcourt_1939.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Contient : coupures de presse, programme. - Concerne : représentation du 1er mars 1938 au Théâtre de la Michodière Langue : français](https://film.one/media/person/1230774/gallery-073c9aad05c6.jpg) Contient : coupures de presse, programme. - Concerne : représentation du 1er mars 1938 au Théâtre de la Michodière Langue : français — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/Recueil._%22Le_valet_ma%C3%AEtre%22_de_Paul_Armont_et_L%C3%A9opold_Marchand_-_btv1b10501834f_%2808_of_86%29.jpg/1280px-Recueil._%22Le_valet_ma%C3%AEtre%22_de_Paul_Armont_et_L%C3%A9opold_Marchand_-_btv1b10501834f_%2808_of_86%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Sujet : L'assassin habite au 21 Contient : coupures de presse Langue : français (1942)](https://film.one/media/person/1230774/gallery-50d2875b0729.jpg) Sujet : L'assassin habite au 21 Contient : coupures de presse Langue : français (1942) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Recueil._%22L%27assassin_habite_au_21%22_film_de_Henri-Georges_Clouzot_-_btv1b105095933_%2818_of_32%29.jpg/1280px-Recueil._%22L%27assassin_habite_au_21%22_film_de_Henri-Georges_Clouzot_-_btv1b105095933_%2818_of_32%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Film still from Henri-Georges Clouzot’s "Le Corbeau" (1943)](https://film.one/media/person/1230774/gallery-26defc4c70c7.png) Film still from Henri-Georges Clouzot’s "Le Corbeau" (1943) — Continental Films, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Micheline_Francey_et_Pierre_Fresnay_dans_%C2%AB_Le_Corbeau_%C2%BB.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Pierre Fresnay](https://film.one/media/person/1230774/gallery-dc372027cac6.jpg) Pierre Fresnay — Image via TMDB - ![Film still from Henri-Georges Clouzot’s "Le Corbeau" (1943)](https://film.one/media/person/1230774/gallery-45c1e7e30f0d.png) Film still from Henri-Georges Clouzot’s "Le Corbeau" (1943) — Continental Films, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Pierre_Fresnay_et_Ginette_Leclerc_sont_les_principaux_interpretes_du_%22Corbeau%22.png/1280px-Pierre_Fresnay_et_Ginette_Leclerc_sont_les_principaux_interpretes_du_%22Corbeau%22.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Sujet : Monsieur Vincent (film) Contient : coupures de presse Langue : français (1947)](https://film.one/media/person/1230774/gallery-b4f2f9b653cb.jpg) Sujet : Monsieur Vincent (film) Contient : coupures de presse Langue : français (1947) — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Recueil._%22Monsieur_Vincent%22_film_de_Maurice_Cloche_-_btv1b10525589m_%28043_of_120%29.jpg/1280px-Recueil._%22Monsieur_Vincent%22_film_de_Maurice_Cloche_-_btv1b10525589m_%28043_of_120%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) ## Awards ### Other awards — 1 won - Prix du Brigadier 1962: Prix du Brigadier (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/pierre-fresnay