Daniel Novisedlak/WireImage/Getty ImagesDirector, actor and producer Jacques Perrin, known among other things for “The Migratory People”, “Microcosmos” or “Peau d’Âne”, died at the age of 80 (file photo taken on the occasion of the Toronto International Film Festival, in September 2008).CINEMA – The disappearance of a major figure in French cinema. At the same time actor, director and committed producer, Jacques Perrin, who died this Thursday, April 21 at the age of 80, will have marked by his roles in “Le Crabe-tambour” or “Peau d’âne” and his films on the nature, from “migratory people” to “Oceans” via “Microcosmos”. Member since 2019 of the Academy of Fine Arts, actor in more than 70 feature films at the cinema since the 1950s, notably with Pierre Schoendoerffer and Jacques Demy, he has also been the co-producer of some fifteen films since the end of the 1960s, from “Z” by Costa-Gavras to “Himalaya: the childhood of a chef”, and lent his soft voice to many of works. Clouzot, Costa-Gavras, Demy or SchoendoerfferChild of the ball, Jacques Perrin was born in Paris on July 13, 1941 under the name of Jacques André Simonet. Son of a stage manager at the Comédie-Française who became a prompter at the TNP, Alexandre Simonet, and an actress, Marie Perrin, he performed on stage at the age of 15, then entered the Conservatoire. He began his career at the cinema in 1958 with an appearance in “Les Tricheurs” by Marcel Carné, before a first important role in “La Fille à la suitcase” by Valerio Zurlini. Actor with the appearance of a young romantic first, he then played in particular in “La Vérité” by Henri-Georges Clouzot or “Compartment tueurs” by Costa-Gavras, but distinguished himself above all in the films of Pierre Schoendoerffer, starting with “La 317e section” (1965), in which he played a second lieutenant. A film that “counts a lot in his career”, he will say. Then he will shoot with him “The Crabe-drum” (1977) and “The Honor of a Captain” (1982). The other great director who counts in his career at the time is Jacques Demy, who makes him work alongside Catherine Deneuve in “Les Demoiselles de Rochefort” (1967) and “Peau d’âne” (1970). “That he called me was a surprise, I didn’t know the filmmakers of the New Wave, even if Jacques Demy, he was always a bit apart. For ‘Les Demoiselles de Rochefort’, I told him that I could neither dance nor sing. No problem, he replied”, he said. “Cinema Paradiso” (1989), while starting a production activity, through which he strives to support films committed to or defending the planet. He produced films such as “Z” by Costa-Gavras (1968), which won an Oscar, followed by “State of Siege” (1972) and “Special Section” (1974), or even “La Victoire en chantant” ( 1976) by Jean-Jacques Annaud, before turning to documentaries devoted to animals and the environment, with the exception of a few films such as the great public success “Les Choristes” (2004) by Christophe Barratier and his 8, 6 million admissions. A committed defender of nature, he co-produced “Le Peuple singe” (1989), “Microcosmos: le peuple de l’herbe” (1996), which earned him the César for best producer the following year, or “Himalaya: the childhood of a chef” (1999), before co-directing a certain number of notable documentaries himself. “To be interested in nature is to take up arms to defend it. Cinema is obviously one of the most relevant weapons, emotion has more power of resonance than speech”, he affirmed. In 2001, he successfully co-signed “Le Peuple migrateur”, devoted to birds, which attracted nearly 2.8 million spectators in France, then “Océans” (2010, 2.9 million spectators), rewarded with the César du best documentary in 2011, two epic shoots. His very last role in the cinema, in “Goliath”, released in March, echoed his environmental fights: in this thriller around pesticides, he teams up with a formidable lobbyist from the phytosanitary industry, camped by Pierre Niney. Photo gallery They died in 2022 See the images See also on HuffPost: When Michel Bouquet played Mitterrand perfectly in the cinema