On July 16, 1982, 41 years ago to the day, Patrick Dewaere ended his life. Around 3 p.m., at his home at 25 Impasse du Moulin Vert located in 14e district of Paris, the actor grabbed a rifle offered by his friend Coluche to end life… only 35 years old. However, he was at the height of his glory at the time. In barely 15 years, he had been able to impose himself through thirty films, like a generational actor, marked by torments and frailties, flayed alive and always fair, a brilliant representative of the social feverishness of the post-May period. -68. It’s the movie The Valseuseswho changed his fate. A role of thug offered on a set by Bertrand Blier, a tailor-made suit for this impulsive 27-year-old man who, from then on, saw all the doors of cinema open to him, and work with the biggest names. The announcement of his death resounded in a great explosion… His filming companion, Gérard Depardieu, sent him a posthumous letter, including these few words that were moving and lucid at the same time: “Dear Patrick, I tell you now without embarrassment and without drama. I always felt death in you. Worse, I thought you would leave us even sooner. It was a terrible certainty that I kept to myself. I could not do anything. I was the forced spectator of this countdown. Your suicide was a long and painful illness.”
Friday July 16, 1982, 3 p.m., Patrick Dewaere committed suicide at his home, 25 Impasse du Moulin Vert (Paris 14th) Images of the 8 p.m. news (another era) and the reaction of Bertrand Blier… pic.twitter.com/czwJvLaLjy
— Destination Cinema (@destinationcine) July 16, 2023
“For me, today, Patrick is not an actor, he is someone in my family who has just disappeared”
If Depardieu had “felt the death”running around his sidekick on the set, others – and there are many of them – did not see the tragedy coming. Like Bertrand Blier, questioned “on the spot” for the 8 p.m. newspaper at the time, downstairs from the home of his late friend. The interviewer asks him: “Bertrand Blier, it was you who revealed Patrick Dewaere to the general public, when you chose him to play in “Les Valseuses”, what did you like about him? Why did you choose it?”. In shock, the director replies: “I don’t know anymore, you know, I’m so in shock, it’s hard to talk about cinema, I feel like… (pause). For me, today, Patrick is not an actor, it’s someone in my family who just disappeared, that’s all.” Faced with the emotion of her interlocutor, the journalist bounces back: “But how do you explain this gesture?”. Bertrand Blier, his eyes fixed on the ground, seems to be talking to himself: “I think it’s a gesture that can never be explained, there are people who carry it with them, others don’t… it has nothing to do with a problem of existence. Finally, I saw him last night, he came to my house to chat… I was far from expecting this kind of surprise…”, “You didn’t mention…”, she relaunches. “No, it was even enoughin shape.He was coming out of his boxing training for Lelouch’s film (Edith and Marcel where Patrick Dewaere was to play the boxer Cerdan, alongside Evelyne Bouix, editor’s note). He asked me for mineral water. He was in good shape he was happy, he had plans… I can’t realize yet”. Father of two daughters, Lola and Angèle, Patrick Dewaere did not overcome his breakup with his wife, Elisabeth Malvina Chalier. The latter had left him for… Coluche. The two lovers had left to settle in Guadeloupe. The actor had found refuge with his ex-wife, Sotha, to whom he had informed of his disastrous intention. She had managed to dissuade him for a while, especially since she had told him that she was expecting a child. Unfortunately, tragedy overtook him.
See also: Pierre Niney and Adèle Exarchopoulos “It is an honor for us to review the Patrick Dewaere and Romy Schneider awards”
VF