Fifty years on stage (including more than 800 times in The King is dying by Eugène Ionesco), numerous legendary films, collaboration with all the greatest actors of his generation… At 96, Michel Bouquet left us this week after a full life. However, if the extraordinary career of the comedian was hailed by all, his private life was much more discreet.
However, his wife shared everything with him: life, the stage, the family, the theater. Married to the actor since 1970, the actress Juliette Carré has indeed lived 50 years of collaboration with her husband, on the stage as in the city. Partners in theater (in Le King is dyingor in The Miser in particular), the couple knew each other by heart. A beautiful complicity of which the actress spoke precisely, questioned by Liberation.
“Under a generous, calm and kind approach, Michel remains hypersensitive, very anxious, who has always feared not being up to it and, at 40, he could have said the same thing.“, deciphered the one who saw him evolve in his private life and in his professional life. A beautiful story which had started when Michel Bouquet was going through a difficult divorce with his first wife, also an actress, Ariane Borg.
Shortly after her divorce, they get married, while the actress already has children. Together, they will not have one but will form a beautiful blended family. Asked by Le Figaro on the occasion of his last play in 2016, Michel Bouquet spoke of his wife’s grandchildren as his own. “Jules, who is 26, is a cameraman; Vincent, 21, has a cooking show on television; Marie, also 26, is a singer. They were very affected by the attacks [du 13-Novembre, NDLR]. Their generation was targeted“, he detailed.
The actor, meanwhile, has therefore never had children, even if everyone has always thought that he was the father of Carole Bouquet, of which he finally shares only the family name and the profession! But what was the little secret that kept them going so long? Never talk about their work together! “We don’t meddle much in each other’s work, even if we sometimes allow ourselves a few small remarks“, a pretty golden rule that will never have separated them.