Gina Lollobrigida and the French actor Philippe Leroy during the filming of the film “Good evening, Mrs Campbell”He appeared in over 150 films, worked with the biggest names in cinema, but for the majority of viewers Philippe Leroy – died yesterday at the age of 93 in Rome – it will always be the face of YanezSandokan's friend in Sergio Sollima's 1976 drama. A role that for the French actor was real life: Philippe Leroy-Beaulieu born to a marquis in Paris in 1930, after the Jesuit college, at 21 he joined the Foreign Legion, took part in the Indochina war, then the Algerian war, he was a parachutist, traveller, adventurer at heart. Of Yanez's character he said: «Yanez is me. He is a character that haunts me. Playing him, I felt like I was reliving my life. The six months spent between Malaysia and studying Bollywood, however, were the most extraordinary of my entire career. In entrusting me with the role, Sollima gave me a gift.”
He arrived at the cinema in 1960, in Italy in 1962 he began a career full of roles which led him to work with the greatest directors: he was in A married woman Of Jean-Luc Godard and in The mandrake Of Alberto Lattuadain Without knowing anything about her Of Luigi Comencini, Be good, if you can Of Luigi Magnijust to name a few, but also in successful dramas such as The life of Leonardo da Vinci by Renato Castellaniand naturally Sandokan. And to say that at the beginning he considered acting as “a job for sissies”.
In the In 1990 he married the journalist Silvia Tortora (daughter of Enzo Tortora)a marriage that had made the news due to the large age difference between them, 32 years, and with which he had two children. He never lost the taste for adventure, for travel, the sense of adapting to life (his motto was «Take the train that goes by without knowing where you will get off»). Of death a Vanity Fair He said: “I'm not afraid. I had a fantastic life, I did everything I wanted.” And he added: “And then I should have already died at least 5 times.”
Source: Vanity Fair
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