Jean-Louis Trintignant, French Star of ‘A Man and a Woman,’ ‘Amour,’ Dies at 91

variety.com:

Richard Natale Contributing WriterFrench film great Jean-Louis Trintignant, best known for his roles in “A Man and a Woman,” “Z,” and “The Conformist,” died Friday.

He was 91.Trintignant died at his home in southern France, his wife, Marianne, and agent told the Agence France-Presse.Trintignant was more recently known for roles in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Red” and for starring opposite Emmanuelle Riva in Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” winner of the 2013 Oscar for best foreign film.Taciturn and enigmatic, the “reluctant” actor, who came by his profession by accident and several times announced he was quitting, returned time and again to appear in more than 100 films and achieve international stardom over of a period of more than 40 years working with some of the world’s great directors including Claude Chabrol, Abel Gance, Bernardo Bertolucci, Costa-Gavras, Ettore Scola and Francois Truffaut, as well as Kieslowski and Haneke.

Though he claimed to prefer racing cards, he once told an interviewer, “Basically, I became an actor because I was not gifted in any other art.” Nonetheless, his talents brought him acclaim on the French stage and in some of the more significant films of the post-war era.

Despite many indifferent films and performances, Trintignant left an indelible impression in his best work both as romantic leading man and character performer.After working in the theater in the early ’50s, he landed his first film role in 1954’s “Responsabilite limitee,” and though he tried to avoid working more regularly, he had just married actress Stephane Audrane and went on to star in “Si tou les gars du monde” and “La Loi de rues” in 1956.His first widespread notice came that same year for his work opposite Brigitte Bardot in.