Michel Duchaussoy
French actor Michel Duchaussoy, the voice of Aramis in John Halas’ 1974 cartoon movie The Glorious Musketeers, died Monday from a heart attack. He was 73.
He also voiced Archibald in 2006’s Arthur Et Les Minimoys (Arthur and the Invisibles), repeating the role in the sequels Arthur Et La Vengeance de Maltazard (Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard; 2009) and Arthur et la Guerre Des Deux Mondes (Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds; 2010).
The deep-voiced actor dubbed Marlon Brando in the French version of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.
In 2010, he co-starred with Sophie Marceau in Yann Samuell’s L’age de raison (The age of reason).
“He had a great sense of humor and was always laughing. And that’s a lesson for many of us, that he did not take himself too seriously,” director Patrice Leconte said Tuesday. “This form, not of modesty, but this form of calm talented discretion, it utterly charmed me,” he added.
He was born Michel Rene Jacques Duchaussoy in Valenciennes, France on November 29, 1938. At first a theater actor, he worked for many years in the Comédie Française, where he started his career in 1964.
Duchaussoy performed in many French classic plays including those by Molière, Marivaux, Corneille and Ionesco. He received the prestigious Molière award for best supporting actor in 2003.
Director Patrice Chéreau praised the “magnificent” actor, “someone of great strength, of great inner truth… secretive, solitary, whom I loved a lot.”
France has lost “an immense actor, one of the most popular, an actor who, over the years, stamped himself on the public imagination,” said a statement from the French president’s office.
