Prolific
filmmaker Henri Verneuil was one of the well-known names in French
cinema for forty years, and closed his cinematographic career with two
autobiographic films that narrated the Armenian experience.
He
was born Ashod Malakian on October 15, 1920, in Rodosto, Turkey. The
Malakians emigrated from their hometown in 1924 as a result of Turkish
anti-Armenian persecution in the years after the genocide and settled in
Marseilles (France).
Young
Ashod graduated from the French lyceum in Aix-en-Haute and entered the
École Nationale d’Arts et Metiers in Aix-en-Provence (1942). Upon
graduation in 1944, he put aside his technical diploma and started
working as a journalist. In 1945 he wrote an article about the Armenian
genocide and the editor suggested he adopt a French name to make it look
more objective. Thus, Henri Verneuil was born.
In
the postwar, Verneuil entered the world of cinema. He directed his
first short film in 1946 and moved to Paris in 1949, where he became an
assistant director. In 1951 he directed his first feature, the black
comedy
The Hunting Ground.
His second film, the drama
Forbidden Fruit
(1952), won him international acclaim. Both films featured the great
French comic actor Fernandel in the main role. The same actor played the
six main roles (a father and his five sons) in
The Sheep Has Five Legs
(1954),
which earned the first prize at the Locarno International Film Festival
and an Oscar nomination for best script to Verneuil in 1955. Verneuil’s
biggest hit, before the New Wave of the 1960s, was
The Cow and I
(1959), once again with Fernandel.
Later
he also directed other movie stars including Jean Gabin, Alain Delon,
Lino Ventura, Jean Paul Belmondo, Yves Montand, and Michele Morgan. In
the 1970s he directed a few films in English with Anthony Quinn, Yul
Brynner, and Henry Fonda. His last commercial film was in 1984.
Afterwards, the veteran filmmaker would focus on his Armenian heritage. In 1985 he published an autobiographical work,
Mayrig,
which recounted his childhood and the Armenian experience in Marseilles. It would become the basis for his two last films,
Mayrig
(1991) and
588, rue Paradis
(1992),
featuring Omar Sharif and Claudia Cardinale. In 1988 he had directed
the video clip of “Pour toi, Arménie” (For You, Armenia), the song
composed by Charles Aznavour and Georges Garvarentz to the benefit of the victims of the 1988
earthquake in Armenia.
In
1996 Verneuil, who had earned the French Legion of Honor in 1955, was
awarded an honorary César, France's equivalent of the Oscar, for
lifetime achievement in film. He was elected a member of the Academy of
Fine Arts in 2000. He died in Bagnolet, a suburb of Paris, on January
11, 2002. Two of his children, Patrick Malakian (a TV director) and Gaya
Verneuil (an actress), followed in his steps. Several streets and
squares in France and Armenia bear his name.
