Jacques Duby(1922-2012)
- Actor
Jacques Duby was born in Toulouse in 1922. As a boy, his main handicap
was shyness and after experiencing serious difficulties at oral exams,
his father, a physician (and dramatic critic - noblesse oblige) advised
him to take elocution lessons. A nice move indeed as not only did that
help him to solve his problems (he finally managed to graduate from
high school) but it made Jacques discover his vocation (treading the
boards) too. Following a period of high class training (Conservatoire
de Toulouse, Centre du Spectacle and Conservatoire de Paris), Jacques
Duby started a long career spanning five decades, primarily devoted to
the theater but also to television (over forty roles in films, series
or filmed plays) and, to a lesser extent, to the big screen. His stage
roles includes plays by Marcel Aymé ("Clérambard"), Marcel Achard
("L'Idiote"), Jacques Audiberti ("La logeuse"), Christine Arnothy ("La
Peau de Singe") or Félicien Marceau ("L'Oeuf", "Les Oiseaux de Lune").
Not forgetting his home town, he founded his own company "Le Grenier de
Toulouse" as early as 1945. Not very tall, looking youthful (even now
that he is over eighty), he developed the type of the naive, fragile,
moon-faced dreamer. But wary of the dangers of typecasting, he varied
his roles, never shying away from playing shabby,mean or despicable
creatures ranging from the pathetic cuckolded husband in Marcel Carné's
1953 "Thérèse Raquin" to the homosexual artist in Duvivier's
"Boulevard" (1960) to the ultimate monster (Joseph Goebbels in Lazare
Iglesis's 1972 TV film "Le Bunker"). Ever a workaholic, Jaques Duby has
devoted the bulk of his lifetime to his passion, acting, shooting movie
or TV films in the daytime before running the theater where he would
play at night. The only regret film fans can feel about him is that
Jacques Duby privileged theater and TV over the cinema. For after a
promising decade of fine roles in the fifties before the cameras of
Carné, Cayatte, Decoin and Duvivier, his appearances became scarce,
limited to (sometimes insignificant)supporting roles in uninteresting
works. He could have been one of the major figures of French cinema
without giving up theater for all that. But, to paraphrase "Some like
it hot", nobody is perfect!
