A few anecdotes to put you on the track...
This Burgundian was the son of an industrialist and a seamstress. He grew up in Dijon, discovered theater in high school and it was his literature teacher who encouraged him to become an actor. The village of Précy-le-Sec saw him grow and will remain his refuge.
He liked to buy his tweed suits at Scottish Laines, boulevard Saint-Germain.
He had quite the fork and loved the festivities. A table at Le Duc, the fish restaurant in Montparnasse, reunions with friends Rochefort, Belmondo, in Ermenonville or in the palaces of Florence, evenings at the Elysée Matignon with Gainsbourg or Johnny Hallyday, tours in the cellars of jazz…
These moments alternated with times of calm and silence to concentrate and learn the texts.
He liked to play the stupid and wicked beaufs.
"For an actor, it's not very interesting to play a nice guy. The instability, the disorder are much richer”, he said. “I love it, to play the idiots”.
He will play in more than a hundred of these auteur films to mainstream films, from comedy to tragedy. He worked for great directors like Patrice Leconte, Bertrand Blier, Claude Sautet, Yves Robert, Claude Miller, Philippe de Broca and Bertrand Tavernier.
He was a rough character who could intimidate his interlocutors. "Do you like being pissed off? Not me".
He could wear a pink suit or a purple dressing gown, roll on the beach and make you waltz "Mon p'tit" with all his might...
With his deep voice and confident inflections, he explores the concupiscence and mediocrity of his contemporaries.
For his most beautiful role, Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, in All the mornings of the world by Alain Corneau, to be able to interpret him, he was inspired from Pascal Quignard's Music Lesson.
"I'm Jean-Pierre Marielle. The actor. That's it. That's all."
Documentary
La fantaisie douce de Jean-Pierre Marielle, by Jérôme Wybon
Bibliography
Jean-Pierre MARIELLE, le Lyrique et le Baroque, by Stéphane Koechlin at Editions du Rocher
Jean-Pierre Marielle – magazine Schnock N°1, Summer / Fall 2011