Actor Henri Garcin (real name Anton Albers) died on Monday June 13 at the age of 94, sad news announced by his daughter Adèle at the Figaro and by his agent at AFP. He died quietly in a retirement home in Paris overnight from Sunday to Monday.
Born in 1928 in Antwerp (Belgium), into a wealthy family of industrialists, the actor spent his childhood in Brussels and said he owed his vocation to his father who “recounted his board meetings with a verve and humor that the best actor would not have disavowed“. He landed in Paris at the age of 20 and trained at the Cours Dullin, before launching an assault on the cabarets, with a sketch he wrote himself. It was there that he crossed paths with Jacques Brel, who also came from Belgium, Barbara, Serge Gainsbourg and Georges Moustaki with whom he formed a great friendship.
Between theater and cinema
While his heart has always swung between cinema and theatre, he made a name for himself in the roles of anti-hero: outdated seducer of Catherine Deneuve in The good life (1966) by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, gangster partner of Mireille Darc in sorrel flower (1967) by Georges Lautner or even bourgeois deceived by Fanny Ardant in The Woman Next Door (1981) by Francois Truffaut. The latter had met Henri Garcin a few years earlier, when he came to attend the play. Something like Glenariff in which the actor had a role. “I am full of admiration for you“, was then amazed the filmmaker at the time, before working with him a few years later.
But Henri Garcin above all became very popular in the 90s thanks to his performances in the series Maguy. A success that had him”a bit far from the cinema” he had acknowledged through his memoirs published in 2019. His last role as an actor dates back to 2020, in the film The Holy Family. He was then 92 years old.