His film career, Olivier Marchal owes it in part to his girlfriend at the time: a certain Michèle Laroque! The romance of these two actors dates back to the 1980s. He was still a policeman and she was making her theater debut. It was by following the wise advice of his companion that Olivier Marchal finally embarked on a career as an actor, as he had told during his time on the show. I love you etc. on France 2, in 2020.
“I met her, I was a cop in the counterterrorism section, and we went out to clubs a lot with my group. And I had met an architect from Nice who was having a party at his house, and since she is from Nice, she was at the partyhe remembered. But she was starting in Paris, she was at the Blancs-Manteaux, she was playing a show called Save the baby women. I was not at all in the theater yet, we had a little crush.” Olivier Marchal had already tasted the joys of the theater in his youth, during his time with the Jesuits of the Saint-Joseph-de-Tivoli high school in Bordeaux. But this son of a pastry chef had never dared to dream of making a career out of it: “I couldn’t see myself saying to my father: ‘I’m going to Paris’. It was a bit…”
Michèle Laroque finally managed to convince him to change paths. “She said to me, ‘If you want to be an actor, you have to try. She was the one who made me rehearse my audition.“While continuing his job as a PJ inspector, Olivier Marchal then took acting lessons at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. He landed his first role in 1988 and began on familiar ground, since he embodied an inspector in Don’t wake a sleeping cop. He finally left the police in 1994.
On the heart side, separated from Michèle Laroque, Olivier Marchal found love again with Catherine Quiniou, with whom he married in 1995. The couple had four children: Léa (in 1994), Zoé (in 1998), Ninon (in 2006) and Basil (in 2009). For her part, Michèle Laroque was first married to the director Dominique Deschamps, the father of her daughter Oriane (born in 1995). Since 2008, she has shared the life of Senator-Marie François Baroin.