René Clément (March 18, 1913, Bordeaux – March 17, 1996, Monte Carlo, Monaco) was a French film director and screenwriter. Clément studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he developed an interest in filmmaking. In 1936, he directed his first film, a 20 minute short written and featuring Jacques Tati. Clément spent the latter part of the 1930s making documentaries in parts of the Middle East and Africa. In 1937, he and archaeologist Jules Barthou were in Yemen making preparations to film a documentary, the first ever of that country and one that includes the only known film image of Imam Yahya. Almost ten years passed before Clément directed a feature but his French Resistance film, La Bataille du rail (1945), gained much critical and commercial success. From there René Clément became one of his country's most successful and respected directors, garnering numerous awards including two films that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the first in 1950 for The Walls of Malapaga (Au-delà des grilles) and the second time two years later for Forbidden Games (Jeux interdits). Clément had international success with several films but his star-studded 1966 epic Is Paris Burning?, written by Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Paul Graetz was a costly box office failure. Clément continued to make a few films until his retirement in 1975, including an international success with Rider On The Rain that starred Charles Bronson and Marlène Jobert. In 1984 the French motion picture industry honored his lifetime contribution to film with a special César Award. René Clément died in 1996 and was buried in the local cemetery in Menton on the French Riviera where he had spent his years in retirement. Description above from the Wikipedia article René Clément, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Birthday: March 18, 1913
Death: March 17, 1996
March 10, 1960
October 26, 1966
December 16, 1950
May 09, 1952
January 21, 1970
April 30, 1946
January 01, 1937
June 12, 1964
February 27, 1946
September 19, 1949
September 05, 1956
September 15, 1972
October 15, 1975
September 19, 1947
April 05, 1963
June 09, 1971
May 11, 1961
August 20, 1936
September 30, 1954
October 31, 1957
January 01, 1937
December 31, 1931
October 29, 1946
May 07, 2019
January 14, 1984
September 01, 1964
November 29, 2020