Vintage photo.
Vintage photo.
French postcard by Editions Photomania, no. G 50. Photo: J. Prayer / Gamma. Laurent Malet in the French film Tir à vue/Shoot to kill (Marc Angelo, 1984).
One of Fassbinder's most important films
Laurent Malet was born under the full name Laurent Marie Guespin-Malet in 1955 in Bayonne, France. After training with Tsilla Chelto at ENSATT and Blanche Salant at the American Centre in Paris, Malet was hired to play Curd Jürgens' grandson in the television series La Foire (Pierre Viallet, 1977).
After making his stage debut in 'La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu' as Troïlus opposite Claude Jade as Helena in 1975, he went on to star in 1978 as Andrew opposite Donald Sutherland and Stéphane Audran in Claude Chabrol's Canadian-French mystery film Les Liens de sang/Blood Relatives (1978), adapted from the novel by Ed McBain. That same year, Gilles Béhat gave him the lead role in Haro! and he played Yves Montand's son in Joseph Losey's Les Routes du sud/Roads to the South. He then played Lino Ventura's son in the Canadian-French drama L'Homme en colère/Jigsaw (Claude Pinoteau, 1979), and Annie Girardot's son in Le Cœur à l'envers (Franck Apprederis, 1980).
Laurent Malet impressed with his performance as Roger Bataille in Querelle (1982), the last film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, based on Jean Genet's novel 'Querelle de Brest', and starring Brad Davis and Franco Nero. James Travers at French Filmsin 2011: "Too often dismissed as a pretentious piece of gay erotica, Querelle has only recently (twenty years after its release) come to be regarded in a favourable light and is now widely considered to be one of Fassbinder's most important films."
In the same year, Malet acted in Peter Del Monte's Invitation au voyage (1982), which was awarded at Cannes. In this road movie, he plays a young man who cannot separate himself from his dead twin sister (who is also his beloved) and drives around with her corpse. He also starred alongside Sandrine Bonnaire in Tir à vue/Shoot to kill (Marc Angelo, 1984).
He played alongside Charlotte Rampling in Viva la vie (Claude Lelouch, 1984), alongside Francis Huster and Jean Marais in the French fantasy and musical Parking (1985), directed by Jacques Demy, and again opposite Sandrine Bonnaire in the French-Belgian drama La Puritaine/The Prude (Jacques Doillon, 1986). In 1987, he starred alongside his brother Pierre Malet in Jeanne Labrune's TV film La Part de l'autre. He had already played with his brother in Comme un boomerang (José Giovanni, 1976) with Alain Delon, in which they made a brief appearance.
Vintage photo.
Vintage photo.
Vintage photo.
The euthanasia of his mother
Laurent Malet played the role of the client alongside Isaac de Bankolé in Bernard-Marie Koltès's play 'Dans la solitude des champs de coton' (1987), directed by Patrice Chéreau at the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers. This performance was followed by a European tour and a television broadcast directed by Benoît Jacquot. Acclaimed was his performance as Kirilov opposite Isabelle Huppert in Andrzej Wajda's French drama Les Possédés/The Possessed (1988), based on the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He returned to the stage in 1989 to star in 'Le Transport amoureux', directed by Antoine Vitez at the Théâtre de l'Odéon.
In 1994, he tried his hand at directing, making the short film Au nom d'un chien based on 'Jérôme', a short story by Louis Hémon, starring Jean-Marc Barr. Malet played Arthur Rimbaud twice, first in the TV film L'Homme aux semelles de vent (Marc Rivière, 1995), then in the play 'Rimbaud, dernière escale'(1999), which he co-wrote and premiered at the Théâtre Molière/Maison de la Poésie. In 2003, he starred alongside Bernard Giraudeau in the Swiss-French absurdist black comedy Ce jour-là/That Day by Chilean filmmaker Raoul Ruiz. He reunited with the director for La Maison Nucingen (Raul Ruiz, 2008). In addition to stage and screen, Malet has also acted in several TV films and TV series. He mostly appeared in one episode, but in the Italian TV series Cuore by Luigi Comencini, he had a lead in all six episodes. He played the adult Enrico Bottini, opposite Johnny Dorelli as Maestro Perboni and Carlo Calenda as young Enrico.
He also acted as Michel le Fresne in five of the six episodes of the war drama The Free Frenchman (Jon Goddard, 1989), starring Derek de Lint and based on the book by Piers Paul Read. Most recently, he acted as Papa Charly in all eight episodes of the Science-Fiction mini-series Section Zéro (Olivier Marchal, 2016).
Laurent Malet is the son of Florence Malet and Jean-Jacques Guespin. His twin brother, actor Pierre Malet, also goes by the pseudonym (Pierre) Marie Guespin-Malet. He is also the half-brother of Olivier, Lison and Charlotte Guespin, whose mother, Geneviève Galéa, is also the mother of, among others, Emmanuelle Béart. Very attached to his brother and his mother, whose name he usually bears alone, Malet was asked by his mother, who was suffering from terminal brain cancer, to put an end to her suffering. He recounts this story in his book 'En attendant la suite', published in 2007. At the time, Malet called on the presidential candidates to legislate on euthanasia. Laurent Malet has shared his life with actress Isabelle Renauld since 1987. They have a son, Théo, born in 1988.
Vintage postcard. French poster by Benjamin Baltimore / Gaumont for Querelle (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1982) with Brad Davis.
Vintage photo.
French postcard by Imprimerie Soccodim, Sartrouville. Poster design by Razzia. Poster for Invitation au voyage (Peter Del Monte, 1982) with Laurent Malet.
Vintage photo.
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. E 478. French poster for Les Possédés (Andrzej Wajda, 1988), starring Lambert Wilson, Isabelle Huppert, Jutta Lampe, Omar Sharif, Laurent Malet, and based on the novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Sources: James Travers (French Films), Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.
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