Philippe Leroy passed away this evening in Rome at the age of 93 after a long illness. For decades he was one of the best-known faces of Italian cinema and TV, a country that he had ‘adopted’ at the beginning of the Sixties, after an adventurous youth, which had made him particularly credible in the tough roles he played in the following decades. The last appearance in The night is small for us, directed by Gianfrancesco Lazotti in 2019.
His name for the general Italian public is linked to the interpretation he gave of Yanez de Gomera, the faithful Portuguese friend of the famous pirate Sandokan the Malaysian Tigerin the Rai television drama “Sandokan” (1976) by Sergio Sollima, and that of Leonardo in the equally famous television drama “La vita di Leonardo da Vinci” (1971) by Renato Castellani.
In 1990 the actor married the journalist Silvia Tortoradaughter of the TV host Enzo, with whom she had two children, Philippe and Michelle, and who left him a widower on January 10, 2022. The actor also has another daughter from a previous relationship, the actress Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu .
He had already become appreciated by Italian cinemagoers as a co-star alongside Rossana Podestà in the films “Seven men of gold” (1965) and “The great coup of the 7 men of gold” (1966). On the big screen the actor has been able to impose, both in hero roles and in negative, treacherous or cruel ones, his ‘tough guy’ character with a lean and athletic physique, a hollow face and a decisive character. In half a century of career Leroy has appeared in almost one hundred and fifty films (essentially Italian)although often in secondary roles, spanning all genres, from peplum to horror, from thriller to comedy. On TV his most recent role was in the series “Don Matteo” (2008-2009) with Terence Hill, in the role of the bishop. At the cinema he had a last small role in “The night is small for us” (2019) directed by Gianfrancesco Lazotti.
Born in Paris on 15 October 1930 into a noble family (his father, a diplomat, was a marquis), in 1952, after graduating in political science, Leroy abandoned a guaranteed destiny to go and fight as a paratrooper second lieutenant first in Vietnam and then in Algeria ; he then lived for some time in the United States. Back in his homeland, he worked in very different jobs until, as advertising administrator of the magazine “La cinématographie française”, he had the opportunity to come into contact with the world of cinema.
Leroy thus met Jacques Becker, who in 1960 cast him in “The Hole”, in his first role as a tough guy: a prisoner trying to escape from prison, a criminal, but human and full of dignity. Other interpretations followed in France, but, above all, from 1961 he began to work mainly in Italy, where he immediately participated in two films that exemplify his main future roles: “Manhunt” by Riccardo Freda, in which he plays a wanted bandit and then captured by police; “Lions in the sun” by Vittorio Caprioli, freely inspired by the novel “Mortal wound” by Raffaele La Capria.
Since then, both in commercial and art films, and also in numerous television productions (in which he took part since the early Seventies), the actor alternated parts of a pure villain with others of a decadent aristocrat: from the bourgeois pilot betrayed by wife of “A Married Woman” (1964) by Jean-Luc Godard, to the ‘professor’, member of an international gang who robs a Swiss bank of “Seven Golden Men” (1965) by Marco Vicario, a champion film takings which gave him great popularity.
Due to his physique and flexibility of expression, Leroy has often been entrusted with characters of strong charisma rendered with notable class: he is in fact a prince in “The Attic” (1963) by Gianni Puccini and in “Il tango della gelosia” ( 1981) by Steno; Saint Ignatius of Loyola in “Be good if you can” (1983) by Luigi Magni and Pope Leo XIII in “Don Bosco” (1988) by Leandro Castellani.
Often, however, he was chosen to play cruel characters, determined to destroy their adversaries: this is the tribune Silla who does not hesitate to break a peace treaty in “Solo against Rome” (1962) by Herbert Wise (Luciano Ricci); a major who forcibly transforms a platoon of rebels into a war machine in “RAS – Nothing to Report” (1973) by Yves Boisset; a Nazi in “The Night Porter” (1974) by Liliana Cavani; a man who forces his wife into prostitution and rapes his son’s friend before his eyes in “Quiet Country Women” (1980) by Claudio De Molinis.
Leroy knew how to make his characters disturbing, as in “Femina ridens” (1969) by Piero Schivazappa, in which the irreproachable man he plays is actually a torturer of prostitutes. In “Without knowing anything about her” (1969) by Luigi Comencini, he draws a cruel murderer willing to become the lover of the daughter of a murdered woman in order to obtain information from her, while in “The wild eye” (1967) by Paolo Cavara is a film reporter who, to obtain a realistic scene, organizes an accident and films an attack without paying attention to his lover who is killed. During the nineties, in addition to working on television, he played small roles in films such as “Nikita” (1990) by Luc Besson, “Casanova Returns” (1991) by Edouard Niermans and “Mario and the Magician” (1993 ) by Klaus Maria Brandauer. In 1999 he participated in the comedy “The Fish in Love” by Leonardo Pieraccioni and in 2001 in the drama “Vajont – La diga del disonore” by Renzo Martinelli.
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