R.I.P. Gerard Oury

[Reza]

French Director Gerard Oury Dies at 87
By Associated Press

July 20, 2006, 8:15 AM EDT

SAINT-TROPEZ, France -- Director Gerard Oury, a cultural icon of
France whose decades-old comedies remain hits today, has died, local
officials at his Riviera home said Thursday. He was 87.

Oury, whose top hits include the 1973 movie "Les Aventures de Rabbi
Jacob" (The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob), died at his home in
Saint-Tropez on Wednesday night, the Var municipality said.

Oury, who began as an actor, directed a series of hit films that keep
the French laughing today. Besides "Rabbi Jacob," he is best known
for the 1966 movie "La Grande Vadrouille," (Don't Look Now -- We're
Being Shot At).

Oury once said that his movies "dealt with serious things by making
people laugh."

"La Grande Vadrouille," for instance, tells the story of the antics
of two French civilians trying to help an Allied bomber crew shot
down over Paris during World War II.

"In my opinion," Oury said, "it is more useful to make people laugh
than to make a movie that preaches, is abstract."

The son of a violinist, Oury began as an actor before moving behind
the camera. He directed France's greats, from comedians Louis de
Funes and Bourvil to Jean-Paul Belmondo and Yves Montand.

President Jacques Chirac, in a statement, called Oury's movies "an
integral part of our culture and our imagination."

The president of the Cannes Film Festival, Gilles Jacob, praised Oury
for his "sense of comedy, sense of rhythm ... timing, all with an
absence of pretension."

He noted the serious topics, from the Resistance to racism, at the
heart of Oury's movies.

"He will remain one of the great masters of French comedy in cinema,"
Jacob said.

Other movies included "La Folie des Grandeurs" (The Folly of
Grandeur) (1971) and, in 1999, "La Schpountz."

Oury was to be buried Monday at Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, the
Academie des Beaux Arts, of which he was a member, announced. Among
survivors are actress Michele Morgan, Oury's longtime companion, and
a daughter, Daniele Thompson, by a previous relationship.