Pierre Larquey

Biography

A July heat-wave greeted Pierre Larquey’s first cry on 10 July 1884 in the wine-country village of Cénac, Gironde. Over the next seventy-seven years he turned that country-boy grin into one of French cinema’s most beloved mugs—waltzing from farce to thriller with the same impish sparkle. Audiences still jump when he shuffles through the corridors of *Diabolique* (1955), smile when he haunts *Sylvie and the Ghost* (1946), and feel the steppes burn beneath his boots in *Tarass Boulba* (1936). On 17 April 1962 the curtains closed for good in Maisons-Laffitte, Yvelines, but the twinkle never left the screen.