Georges Cravenne

Georges Cravenne was born Joseph-Raoul Cohen in Kairouan, Tunisia, in 1914; The Times of Israel, recounting the events of 1973, describes him plainly as Jewish. He took the name Cravenne during the war, when he was in the Resistance and evading the Gestapo. A clapper boy on a Fernandel film in 1934, he helped create the Prix Louis-Delluc in 1937 and opened France's first modern public-relations agency in 1948, becoming press agent to Jean Renoir, Max Ophüls, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Gérard Oury and Brigitte Bardot. On 18 October 1973, while he was promoting The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, his wife Danielle hijacked the Paris–Nice flight demanding the film be banned and was shot dead at Marignane; he sued the state, represented by Robert Badinter and Georges Kiejman. Three years later he founded the Académie des arts et techniques du cinéma and its César Awards, then the Molières for theatre and the 7 d'Or for television. He received an honorary César in 2000.