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Film stars, PM bid farewell to one of France's best-loved actors
2006-11-28
French stars of the screen and stage as well as Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin gathered here Monday for the funeral of one of the country's best-loved actors, Philippe Noiret. Veteran actors Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo, singers Patrick Bruel and Alain Souchon and film director Bertrand Tavernier were among up to 1,000 mourners to attend, an AFP journalist at the scene said. About 300 others had to pay their final respects from the square outside the packed Sainte-Clotilde Basilica. Noiret, 76, died on Thursday. It was the wish of his widow Monique Chaumette, whom he married in 1962, that the funeral be open for anyone who wanted to attend. A round of applause rang out when the coffin appeared, bedecked in orange-hued roses, the actor's favourite flowers. During the service, a soprano sang the title song from one of Noiret's films, the 1967 movie "Alexandre le Bienheureux" (Very Happy Alexander), which was his first major role. The actor, whose career in film and theatre spanned more than 50 years, had been ill for a long time and was buried at Paris' Montparnasse cemetery, where many French intellectual and artistic personalities have been laid to rest. Noiret appeared in about 125 films, including the 1989 movie "Cinema Paradiso" and "Il Postino" in 1994, and he scooped two Cesar awards, the French equivalent of an Oscar.
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