Goodbye to Phiippe Leroy, adventurer in cinema and in life

The young marquis Philippe Marie Paul Leroy-Beaulieu I had almost everything. He lacked emotion. So at the age of 17 he entered the merchant navy as a simple cabin boy. One day he landed in New York and dedicated himself to getting to know the United States, working on whatever he wanted.

Back in his homeland, he signed up as a volunteer in the 18th Parachute Regiment, had his baptism of fire in the Indochina War (he arrived just for the terrible battle of Diem BiemPhu) and his next hell in the Algerian War. France lost both, and shortly after, due to a plot against the general De Gaullethe regiment was disbanded and Leroy on the street, but with the rank of captain earned in combat and three decorations: the Legion of Honor, the Cross of Military Valor and the Croix de Guerre.

He was already 30 years old, and had no job. But it so happened that a friend introduced him to Jacques Beckera great film director who was preparing a film based on a real event: “The gap”, story of friendship, effort and betrayal in a Santé dungeon. main figures, Jean Keraudy (born Roland Barbathe was one of the prisoners who made that hole in 1947)José Giovanni (former heavy criminal, after serving eleven years in prison he would become a novelist, screenwriter and director), Michel Constantin, Marc Michel and Philippe Leroy. Tall, skinny, with marked features, dry gestures and a firm and generous gaze, he was not going to go unnoticed. The film achieved a million viewers, and he began to receive proposals from other directors.

That’s how he became an actor. He settled in Italy and played small and occasional leading roles, always with the same face, in police films, peplums, war films, passion films, often with good directors and in good company.

The titles may give you an idea: “The Castle Murders”, “Lionesses in the Sun”, “The Law of Desire”, “55 Days in Pekin” (Hollywood blockbuster filmed in Cinecittá), “Summer Frenzy”, “Sowing Death”, “Easy Loves”and suddenly, at 35, world fame, with one of thieves, “Seven Golden Men”followed by “The great heist of the seven golden men”, “The night was made for stealing” and the like. He wasn’t pretty enough to become a star, but when people saw him in advertisements he bought the ticket. It was the ’60s, when theaters were full all over the world.

In the ’70s RAI, RadiotelevisioneItaliana, was noticed everywhere with its quality miniseries. And there it was Leroy as Leonardo Da Vinci in the admirable “Vita di Leonardo”, by Renato Castellaniand then like Yanez, Sandokan’s friend, in the very popular “Sandokan, the Tiger of Malaysia” (protagonist, the heartthrob Kabir Bedia native of Lahore, who later worked in Hollywood and is now still in Bollywood, after passing through Buenos Aires, but this is another story).

TO Leroy The most successful business directors loved him: Caprioli, Freda, Marco Vicario, FestaCampanile, Tinto Brass, Michele Lupo, Claude Zidi. Also, some more prestigious directors: Franjú, Bolognini, Nicholas Ray, Zampa, Lattuada, Lizzani, Godard, Liliana Cavani, Yves Robert, Comencini, Carlos Saura, Lelouch, Magni, Yves Boisset, Darío Argento, Luc Bessonand the signatures follow.

And the women loved him, as is fame. He had three marriages, four children, five houses, all with furniture and wood paneling that he made with his own hands.

He acted in 180 films and twenty series, sometimes he played the hero, other times the antihero, and even Saint Paul, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XI.I, to the perplexity of his followers. He received only one award, that of the Salerno Festival for “A uomo di razza”a man of race, when he was already 59 years old.

He continued acting until he was 88 and 90 He celebrated his birthday by skydiving from 3000 meters, like when he was young, but then, when his wife died, he fell apart. All the hardness of his face hid the tenderness of a homely man. Already without desire and with 94 on his back, last Sunday he let himself die, from pure old age.