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Daniel Gélin
Gélin in 1963
Born	Daniel Yves Alfred Gélin (1921-05-19)19 May 1921 Angers, Maine-et-Loire, France
Died	29 November 2002(2002-11-29) (aged 81) Paris, France
Years active	1940–2002
Spouses	Danièle Delorme ​ ​(m. 1946; div. 1954)​ Sylvie Hirsh ​ ​(m. 1954; div. 1968)​ Lydie Zaks ​ ​(m. 1973)​
Children	6, including Xavier Gélin, Maria Schneider and Fiona Gélin

Daniel Yves Alfred Gélin (19 May 1921 – 29 November 2002) was a French film and television actor.

Early life

Gélin was born in Angers, Maine-et-Loire, the son of Yvonne (née Le Méner) and Alfred Ernest Joseph Gélin.

When he was ten, his family moved to Saint-Malo where Daniel went to college until he was expelled for 'uncouthness'. His father then found him a job in a shop that sold cans of salted cod. It was seeing the shooting of Marc Allégret's film Entrée des artistes that triggered his desire to go to Paris to train to be an actor. He trained at the Cours Simon in Paris before entering the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique . There he met Louis Jouvet and embarked on a theatrical career. He made his first film appearance in 1940 in Miquette and for several years was an extra or played small roles in French films. He appeared with Jean Gabin and Marlene Dietrich in Martin Roumagnac (1946).

Career

He won his first leading role in Rendez-vous de juillet (1949). From that time, he went on to appear in more than 150 films, including Max Ophüls' films La Ronde (1950) and Le Plaisir (1952), Jacques Becker's Édouard et Caroline (1951), Sacha Guitry's films Si Versailles m'était conté (Royal Affairs in Versailles) (1954) and Napoléon (1955), Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Jean Cocteau's Le Testament d'Orphée (1960), Le souffle au cœur (Murmur of the Heart) (1971), and La Nuit de Varennes (That Night in Varennes) (1982). He also wrote and directed one film, The Long Teeth, in 1952.

Gélin was a leading man in French cinema during the 1950s, but his career declined with the coming of the New Wave. He worked in theater for several years, but later found new success on screen as a character actor. He appeared extensively in French films and television productions from the 1970s until his death, often playing cynical characters or grumpy old men.

Personal life

In 1946, Gélin married actress Danièle Delorme with whom he had a son, actor, director and producer Xavier Gélin. They divorced in 1954. While still married to Delorme, he had an affair with 17-year-old model Marie Christine Schneider that produced a daughter, Maria Schneider. Due to his status as a married man, Gélin could not recognize Maria as his daughter. He visited the child several times but eventually severed his relationship with her mother. Maria Schneider and Daniel Gélin reconnected when she was sixteen and came to visit him. They remained in contact, although their relationship was irregular.

Gélin was married to model Sylvie Hirsch from 1954 until their divorce in 1968. This marriage produced three children: Pascal (who died aged one year), Fiona, and Manuel, the latter two also becoming actors. In 1973, he married Lydie Zaks, with whom he had a daughter, Laura.

Death

Gélin died in Paris on 29 November 2002 of kidney failure.

Filmography

References

1. "Daniel Gelin : biographie". OverBlog. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
2. "Daniel GÉLIN". Archived from the original on 23 July 2014. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
3. "Daniel Yves Alfred Gelin – Arbre généalogique Henri FREBAULT – Geneanet". Retrieved 23 September 2014.
4. Travers, James (1 January 2014). "Review of the film Les Dents longues (1952)". Films de France. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
5. Daniel Gélin, Bibliothèque du film
6. David Thomson. A Biographical Dictionary of Film. Andre Deutsch.
7. "Maria Schneider". www.mariaschneider.eu. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
8. Vanessa Schneider, Tu t'appelais Maria Schneider, Grasset, 2018, pp. 21-31, 186-188, 191-192
9. "Daniel Gelin, 81; Versatile French Actor Had 60-Year Career". Los Angeles Times. 30 November 2002. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
10. "Obituary: Daniel Gélin". TheGuardian.com. 2 December 2002.
11. "Gélin Daniel – Memoires de guerre". 11 February 2020.

External links

• Daniel Gélin at IMDb

• 1921 births
• 2002 deaths
• 20th-century French male actors
• 20th-century French male writers
• 20th-century French screenwriters
• 21st-century French male actors
• Deaths from kidney failure in France
• French male film actors
• French film directors
• French male screenwriters
• Actors from Angers
• Male actors from Pays de la Loire