A larger than life figure with a career and a reputation to match, Grard Depardieu is among the few stars of French cinema to be equally well known outside the country.

One of the most prolific actors in film history,Depardieuhas appeared in more than 200 films and television series since his on-screen debut in 1967, working withdirectors including Jean-Luc Godard, Franois Truffaut, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol, Ridley Scott and Bernardo Bertolucci.

A national icon in France Depardieu is a Chevalier of theLgion d'honneurand of theOrdre national du Mrite he has made the rare crossover to stardom in the anglophone world, with his Hollywood hits including Green Card (1990), for which he won the Golden Globe for best actor, as well as Hamlet (1996), The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), La Vie en Rose (2007) and Life of Pi (2012).

The 76-year-old is known for his portrayals of towering historical figures including Joseph Stalin, Auguste Rodin, Christopher Columbus and Rasputin, as well as heroes of French literature characters and their creators alike such as Honor de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Cyrano de Bergerac, Jean Valjean, Oblix and the Count of Monte Cristo.

Origins

Born Grard Xavier Marcel Depardieu on 27 December 1948 to an impoverished family in Chteauroux, central France, he was one of six children.

By the age of 13 he had left school, barely literate, and was dabbling in crime. According to his 2014 autobiography, a s'est fait comme a ("It just happened like that"), he worked as a prostitute as well as robbing graves, selling black market cigarettes and alcohol at a nearby American air base and stealing cars.

Acting proved his salvation, with money the motivating factor by his own admission. He left his hometown for Paris at the age of 16 to pursue it. There he met director Agns Varda, the first to cast him in a short film that was never completed.

He made his screen debut in Roger Leenhardt's 1967 short film Le Beatnik et le minet (The Beatnik and the Twink). But it was his performance as a young thug in 1974'sLes Valseuses("Going Places") that was to be his big break.

Leading man

In 1981 he wonhis first Csar Award for best actor, for his performance in Franois Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980), set in Nazi-occupied Paris and co-starring Catherine Deneuve.

This kicked off two decades as France's premier leading man, a period in which he appeared in his biggest hits, including Maurice Pialat's Police (1985), 1986'sJean de Florette, which raised his international profile, and the 1993 adaptation of Emile Zola's Germinal.

Ten years on from his first, he won his second Csar best actor award, for his career-defining role inJean-Paul Rappeneau'sCyrano de Bergerac (1990), for which he also received an Oscar nomination.

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Flops have been a rarity in Depardieu's career, but two notable box office failures were Ridley Scott's1492: Conquest of Paradise(1992) in which he played Columbus. The film took just $3 million on its opening weekend, for which Scott blamed US audiences' difficulty in understanding European accents.

In United Passions, the story of the origins of football federation Fifa, Depardieu played its founder Jules Rimet. The film lost $26.8m worldwide and was blasted by critics as propaganda, as its release coincided with Fifa's 2015 corruption case.

It was only shown at Cannes after Depardieu lobbied the director of the festival directly, who eventually agreed to an open-air public screening on the beach.

Courting controversy

Depardieu is no stranger to the headlines famously once declaring that he drinks up to 14 bottles of wine a day, being banned from driving for six months after crashing his scooter while four times over the legal alcohol limit,and urinating into a water bottle on an Air France flight, which he then spilled on the floor.

He is currently under investigation for alleged tax fraud. French tax investigators suspect him of falsely declaring his tax residency as Belgium since 2013 to avoid paying taxes in France. This followed a vocal dispute with the French government over the wealth tax introduced by then-president Franois Hollande, in which he referred to his home country as a "filthy mess".

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Financial crime prosecutors opened a probe in February, which resulted in raids in France and Belgium as well as police interviews, although the actor has not been questioned.

Heacquired Russian citizenshipin 2013 from President Vladimir Putin, who Depardieuhas praised, calling him "the man Russia needs". In 2015, he was banned from entering Ukraine for five years after apparently supporting the Russian annexation of Crimea.

In December 2023, after a documentary aired that included footage of Depardieu making sexually suggestive comments about a young girl in North Korea, President EmmanuelMacron defended the actoron national television, saying: "Grard Depardieu makes France proud."

A few weeks later, Macron expressed his regret over the comments, saying that it was important "for women who are victims of abuse to speak out".

Sexual assault allegations

Depardieu is currentlystanding trial ontwo counts of sexual assault, accused of groping two women in 2021 on the set of Les Volets Verts ("The Green Shutters").If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a fine of 75,000.

He is the highest-profile figure in French cinema to face such accusations in the wake of the country's#MeToo movement, and histrial is being viewed as a test of France's willingness to confront sexual violence and hold influential men accountable.

The actor is facing allegations of sexual harassment and assault from more than a dozen other women, and a Paris court is still deciding whether to go ahead with a second trial forhis alleged rape and sexual assault of Charlotte Arnould, the first woman to file a criminal complaint against him in 2018.

Depardieu denies all allegations. "Never, but never, have I abused a woman," he wrote in an open letter in French newspaper Le Figaroin 2023. "I have only ever been guilty of being too loving, too generous, or having a temperament that is too strong."

(With newswires)

Originally published on RFI