Michael Lonsdale

Michael Edward Lonsdale Crouch, commonly known as Michael Lonsdale and sometimes as Michel Lonsdale, was a French-British actor and author who appeared in over 180 films and television shows. He is most famous for being cast as the villain Hugo Drax in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker, deputy police commissioner Claude Lebel in The Day of the Jackal, The Abbot in The Name of the Rose and Dupont d'Ivry in The Remains of the Day.

Early life and education

Lonsdale was born in Paris, the natural son of British Army officer Edward Lonsdale Crouch and Simone Calderon. He was brought up initially on the island of Jersey, then in London from 1935, and later, during the Second World War, in Casablanca, Morocco.

Career

He returned to Paris to study painting in 1947, but was drawn into the world of acting instead, first appearing on stage at the age of 24. Lonsdale was bilingual, and appeared in both English-language and French-language productions. He appeared in a starring role with Roger Moore in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker. and with Sean Connery, in the 1986 film The Name of the Rose. He would later appear in Munich, a film that also starred another Bond actor, Daniel Craig.
In February 2011, he won a César Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Of Gods and Men.
Lonsdale was also the author of ten books.

Personal life and death

As a practising Roman Catholic, he joined the Charismatic Renewal movement in the 1980s and was close to the Emmanuel Community.
In his 2016 memoir Le Dictionnaire de Ma Vie, Lonsdale revealed he had fallen for Delphine Seyrig, having met her as a student in Tania Balachova's acting classes at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in 1947. He wrote that "it was her or nothing", which was why he never married.
Lonsdale died in Paris on 21 September 2020, aged 89.