Gérard Oury

Spruce character player who began directing light entertainments in the late 1950s and, within a decade, was making some of France's highest-grossing films. Oury is best known to English-speaking audiences for the superb slapstick of "The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob" (1973), starring Louis De Funes. Oury's daughter, scenarist Danielle Thompson, has worked frequently with her father as well on productions such as Jean-Charles Tacchella's "Cousin, Cousine" (1975) and Claude Pinoteau's "La Boum" (1980).