Michael Lonsdale

Michael Edward Lonsdale Crouch 24 May 1931 21 September 2020 commonly known as Michael Lonsdale and sometimes as Michel Lonsdale was a FrenchBritish actor and author who appeared in over 180 films and television shows He is often known in the Englishspeaking world for his roles as the villain Hugo Drax in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker deputy police commissioner Claude Lebel in The Day of the Jackal 1973 The Abbot in The Name of the Rose 1986 and Dupont dIvry in The Remains of the Day 1993 Lonsdale was born in Paris the natural son of British Army officer Edward Lonsdale Crouch and Simone Calderon née Béraud He was brought up initially on the island of Jersey then in London from 1935 and later during the Second World War in Casablanca Morocco He returned to Paris to study painting in 1947 but was drawn into the world of acting instead first appearing on stage at the age of 24 Lonsdale was bilingual and appeared in both Englishlanguage and Frenchlanguage productions He appeared in a starring role with Roger Moore in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker and with Sean Connery in the 1986 film The Name of the Rose He would later appear in Munich 2005 a film that also starred another Bond Daniel Craig In February 2011 he won a César Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Of Gods and Men Lonsdale was also the author of ten books A practising Roman Catholic he was close to the Emmanuel Community In his 2016 memoir Le Dictionnaire de Ma Vie Lonsdale revealed he had fallen for Delphine Seyrig having met her as a student in Tania Balachovas acting classes at the Théâtre du VieuxColombier in 1947 He wrote that it was her or nothing which was why he never married Lonsdale died in Paris on 21 September 2020 aged 89 Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Lonsdale licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia