Gérard Oury, a renowned French film director, actor, and writer, was born Max-Gérard Houry Tannenbaum on April 29, 1919. His father, Serge Tannenbaum, was a violinist, and his mother, Marcelle Houry, was a journalist. Oury studied at Lycée Janson de Sailly and the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art.
He became a member of the Comédie-Française just a year before World War II, but fled to Switzerland to escape the anti-Jewish persecutions by the Vichy government. After the war, Oury restarted his career as an actor, performing in the theatre and in supporting roles in the cinema.
Oury began his career as a movie director in 1959 with the film The Itchy Palm. He gained his first success in 1961 with Crime Does Not Pay, a crime drama. Oury then joined André Bourvil and Louis de Funès as a comic duo, and burst into commercial filmmaking with the 1965 comedy The Sucker.
The Sucker was entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival, and the following year, Oury released Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!, which became a huge success, attracting the largest audiences ever in France. This box-office record stood for decades, only surpassed in 1997 by James Cameron's Titanic.
Oury shot the 1969 comedy Le Cerveau, also known as The Brain, in English, starring David Niven in the lead role as a criminal mastermind. He lived with the French actress Michèle Morgan and was the father of French writer Danièle Thompson and grandfather of actor/writer Christopher Thompson. Oury passed away on July 20, 2006, at the age of 87, in Saint-Tropez.
