Gérard Oury

Max-Gérard Houry Tenenbaum was the only son of Serge Tenenbaum, a violinist of Russian Jewish origin, and Marcelle Houry, a French Jewish journalist and art critic. He had joined the Comédie-Française before the war; when Vichy began its persecution of Jews he fled to Switzerland with his mother, his grandmother and the actress Jacqueline Roman. His daughter Danièle Thompson was born in 1942 and his fatherhood was concealed so that she would not be classified as a Jew. He became the great comic director of French cinema: Le Corniaud (1965), La Grande Vadrouille (1966) — for more than thirty years the most-watched film in France — and The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973).