French stage and motion-picture actor.

The son of an actress whose maiden name he adopted, Brasseur began his long career on the stage and, by the 1920s, had leading roles in such films as Madame Sans-Gêne (1925) and Le Sexe faible (1933; “The Weak Sex”). Brasseur's theatrical training ideally suited him for his most famous role: Frédérick LeMaître, an actor of flamboyant charm, in the Marcel Carné and Jacques Prévert film Les Enfants du paradis (1945; Children of Paradise).

Brasseur's more than 80 other films include Quai des brumes (1938; Port of Shadows) and Le Roi de coeur (1966; The King of Hearts). His stage career was equally distinguished; the title role in Kean (1953), a biography of the famous English actor, was written expressly for Brasseur by Jean-Paul Sartre. An autobiography, Ma vie en vrac (“My Life as a Whole”), was published in 1968.