Acting
Raymond Devos
Raymond Devos (9 November 1922 – 15 June 2006) was a Belgian-French humorist, stand-up comedian and clown. He is best known for his sophisticated puns and surreal humour.
Devos was born in Mouscron, Belgium, close to the French border. Both his parents were French and he moved to Tourcoing, France, at the age of two. Seven years later, his family moved to Paris. During the Second World War he was sent, like many young men of his generation, to Germany to work. On his return to France, he took acting and mime lessons at the Étienne Ducroux school, where he met Marcel Marceau. In 1948, he was part of a burlesque trio (in the older sense of the word burlesque).
Devos's career took off in the 1950s when he began writing his own one man shows and was the opening act for Maurice Chevalier. Although his act still involved elements of his early years as a clown (such as juggling) he was mostly recognized because of his mastery of the French language. His unique brand of surreal humour and sophisticated puns garnered him much respect throughout the Francophone world. Devos is a leading character in Alejandro Jodorowsky's surrealist 1957 debut short film Les têtes interverties (a mime adaptation of Thomas Mann's 1940 play The Transposed Heads). Perhaps his best-known international appearance is a cameo in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou 1965 as a man sitting on a harbourside who is obsessed with the memory of a mysterious love song.
He performed for the last time in 1999 in Paris's Olympia Theater. He died in Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, Yvelines, France.
Because he was born in Belgium, the nationality of Devos was often, and still is, a source of confusion. Some media reported his death by referring to "Belgian comic Devos" or "French and Belgian comic Devos". He also has a Dutch/Flemish family name. Devos was born of French parents and raised in France, but was always respectful of his country of birth and once quipped that he was still, after all, a "fake Belgian".
Source: Article "Raymond Devos" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Filmography
Browse movies and TV shows featuring Raymond Devos
Sacrée soirée
Vivement dimanche
Apostrophes
Apostrophes was a live, weekly, literary, prime-time, talk show on French television created and hosted by Bern...
Les Rendez-vous du dimanche
A talk show presented by Michel Drucker
Le Grand Échiquier
Le Grand Échiquier is a French variety television program created and presented by Jacques Chancel. It aired at...
Le Grand Échiquier
Le Grand Échiquier is a French variety television program created and presented by Jacques Chancel. It aired at...
Numéro un
A French variety show.
Discorama
Cinépanorama
Samedi soir
Victoires de la musique
30 millions d'amis
Téléthon
À bout portant
Pierrot le Fou
Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased...
À la recherche de... Pierre Richard
Follow in the footsteps of burlesque actor Pierre Richard, a key figure in French cinema in the 1970s and 1980s.
La TV des 70's : Quand Giscard était président
In May 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became President of the Republic and wanted to bring about a new era of m...
Comiques de toujours (Vol. 1 à 4)
The Right of the Maddest
The guardian of a nursing home lends a compassionate ear to the complaints of two new pensioners who love each...
Tartarin de Tarascon
A well-to-do bourgeois, Tartarin lives in Tarascon, a small southern town, among friends who, like him, love hu...
The Severed Heads
A short mime adaptation of a Thomas Mann story about a Parisian urchin who makes her living selling human heads.
Work and Freedom
Due to a garbage strike, inmates are called in to take care of the garbage collection. Taking advantage of this...
This Pretty World
Pépito runs a gang of thugs with authority. He has a natural son, Gaston, a professor of literature in Aix-en-P...
The Sicilian
A brave little couturier from Lyon, Fernand, travels to Paris to present his creation "La ligne Impériale" to a...
Raymond Devos à l'Olympia
Classic sketches and new ones come together in this show recorded at the Olympia in 1999.
Teuf-teuf
An automobile tribute
Les 60 ans du one-man-show
Michel Sardou - Show Sardou
Raymond Devos - À l'Olympia
You Have Nothing to Declare?
Married against her will to the Comte de Trivelin, Paulette Dupont shares her anxieties with her childhood frie...
Raymond Devos : Les 100 plus grands sketches
Raymond Devos, un hommaginaire
Raymond Devos - 80 ans, 80 sketches
Raymond Devos - Au Théâtre De La Porte Saint Martin