Actor, crooner and musician Guy Marchand, known for his role as Nestor Burma, has died at the age of 86

Famous for his role in the television series “Nestor Burma”, Guy Marchand was also a face of the big screen, starting with “Garde à vue” and a refined music man, jazzman and crooner.

The interpreter of private detective Nestor Burma, Guy Marchand, died Friday December 15 at the age of 86. Guy Marchand, who played in a series, from 1991 to 2003, this Parisian detective character created by the novelist Léo Malet, “died peacefully this Friday (…) at Cavaillon hospital” (Vaucluse), announced his children Jules and Ludivine in a press release sent to AFP.

Born in Paris on May 22, 1937 in the Belleville district, Guy Marchant entered the world of cinema in his twenties as a paratrooper: he was one of the technical advisors of American film The longest day (1962) on the Allied landings in Normandy during the Second World War.

“Nestor Burma, it’s me!”

A film and television actor, he subsequently appeared in around a hundred films and worked with the greatest filmmakers, from François Truffaut to Maurice Pialat, Claude Pinoteau, Claude Miller, Bertrand Tavernier, Costa-Gavras and Alain Corneau. He took his first steps on screen in 1971 alongside Brigitte Bardot and Lino Ventura in Boulevard du Rhum by Robert Enrico. Two years later, we find him on the poster ofA beautiful girl like me by François Truffaut, then he made a series of feature films, including Warning the eyes by Gérard Pirès (1975), Tender Chicken by Philippe de Broca (1977), and Loulou by Maurice Pialat (1979)

In 1981, he stood out in Wipe by Bertrand Tavernier but it is his role as deputy inspector of Lino Ventura in Jail by Claude Miller the same year which earned him the César for best supporting actor. However, it is with the private detective character that he plays in the television series Nestor Burma broadcast on France 2 from 1991 to 2003, that it will make a definitive place in the hearts of the French. “Nestor Burma, it’s me!” he declared to France 3 in 2015. In 2017 and 2018, he played his own role in the series Ten percent.

Singer above all

Known for his deadpan humor and almost poetic composure, Guy Marchand was a jack-of-all-trades artist, crooner singer and jazz musician in addition to being an actor. His father, a night manager at Bobino, had introduced him to gypsy jazz and encouraged him to take up the clarinet (and boxing). But above all he called himself a singer. He became known to the general public in 1965 with the song The Passionnatta, before imposing himself with I am tangoan adaptation of Libertango by Astor Piazzolla then Destinysigned Vladimir Cosma for the soundtrack of the films The underachievers on vacation by Claude Zidi and Santa Clause is garbage by Jean-Marie Poiré (1982). “It was a joke, a stupid thing for the summer, and we sold 250,000 copies! I was upset“, he said. He is the author of 19 albums, including the last, Born in Belleville, was released in 2020.

Guy Marchand had also developed writing talents. In the mid-2000s, after the release of his autobiography, The Guignol of Buttes-Chaumonthe had published several novels including A razor in the hands of a monkey (2008) and The Sun of Lost Children (2011), for which he received the Jean Nohain Prize. The last, Notebook of a casino singer out of seasondates back to 2015.