Though he is not quite the international icon that his erstwhile acting classmate and occasional co-star Jean-Paul Belmondo is, Jean Rochefort has been a fixture of French cinema for over four decades.
Deciding to pursue acting in his youth, Rochefort studied drama at the Paris Conservatory in the late '40s, at the same time as Belmondo. After military service briefly interrupted his career, Rochefort returned to Paris and began performing in cabaret and plays in the mid-'50s. He moved to films in the late '50s and early '60s, with small parts in several movies, including Une Balle dans le Canon (1958) and the swashbuckler Captain Fracasse (1960).
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