“I want nervous boys”: Michel Galabru’s funny anecdote about his recruitment to Le Gendarme de Saint Tropez

Michel Galabru never keeps his tongue in his pocket. Known for his candor and unstoppable humor, the Caesarized actor is back on the show expand on Sunday In the saga of his recruitment, which made him very popular: Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez. And there again, he did not mince his words, as shared by A X Account of the Fans of Louis de Funes.

While passing through Saint-Tropez, where he was shooting the comedy Les Pieds-Nickelés, the actor Judge and Murderer overhears a producer from a hotel window speaking to a group of 5 or 6 people with these words:

So… you put de fune and then I want cheeses. do you understand I don’t want to pay them! Ring-Guards!’ I turn to my wife and say, “Well, the guys who get into this aren’t going to make much”… and that was me!

Nervous people playing police with De Funes thumb? Definitely not! It should be remembered that Galabru (Gerber) was a resident of the Comédie-Française for seven years and the first prize of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts. Christian Marin (Merlot) was at the National Popular Theater with Gérard Philippe, Jean Lefebvre (Fougas) was second prize for comic opera at the Paris Conservatoire and was a member of the Branquignols troupe, while the duo Michel Modo (Berlico) and Guy Grosso (Tricardi) frequented cabarets and had important comedies experience. “We all knew how to make people laugh” writes Michel Galabru in his autobiography I lost it on the 18th.

On the other hand, it is true that all these actors were unknown before Le Gendarme. In most cases, Jean Lefebvre was the kind of face that was noticed by the third knife. But it is the saga of Jean Giraud that really makes them known to the general public.

Galabru, Grosso and Modo will stay until the end, but Jean Lefebvre will leave after the difficult filming of Le Gendarme en stroll, as will Christian Marin. It must be said that after “The Gendarme Walk”, de Funes went to other projects (in which he sometimes participated in Galabru as Josh) and only in 1979 he wanted to remake the Gendarme and it would be “The Gendarme and Aliens”. .

Galabru never hid the fact that he made several films just to pay the bills and support his family, but he always considered the gendarmes a good memory. He writes again in his autobiography: “The gendarmes were a great adventure, because if they needed a “nerd” (…), it turned out that the first one (…) was a success that no one expected. We had no feeling. Making a masterpiece, but the success of the film is irrational.”