Jean-Paul Belmondo, Feb. 1962

Today I was thumbing through a magazine rack at a Goodwill when I chanced upon a February 1962 issue of Pageant magazine that includes a short piece on Jean-Paul Belmondo. Belomondo was recently honored by the Los Angeles Film Critics for his career achievements. High-resolution scans of the original pages are at the bottom, following the transcription. Enjoy!

JB Meets CC

Photographed for Pageant by Marvin Newman

THE FILM HEROES of the young Frenchman at left are Bogart, Brando and Garfield. But put them all together and you still haven’t captured the essence of Jean-Paul Belmondo, the most off-beat European screen sensation in a decade.

At 28, Belmondo has become a one-man New Wave in movies. He’s far from handsome. Yet his broken nose, scowl, smile and compulsively relaxed behavior have inspired the word Belmondisme– meaning rare acting ability blended with a special variety of sensuality. Ever since director Jean-Luc Godard cast him in the lead of Breathless (with American Jean Seberg), Belmondo has been Europe’s most sought-after actor.

In his latest film, he joins the new Italian actress, Claudia Cardinale, to form what may be the most explosive team to hit the screen since Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.

Cartouche, the JB-CC movie, is based on a naughty, wildly-hilarious 17th Century French comedy. It has the same kind of appeal as Fan Fan the Tulip, which titillated American audiences some ten years ago. And like Fan Fan, it’s destined for long runs here and abroad.

In the film Belmondo plays the irrepressible picaresque hero. A gay bandit, he has the implausible ambition of seducing women of the aristocracy. As his taken-for-granted mistress, Cardinale ostensibly heps him and joins in a series of funny and richly sensuous adventures.

But Belmondo proved as irrepressible off camera as on. Claudia, caught up in the antics, said: “The man is so crazy, I love him.”

Claudia Cardinale has the distinction at 22 of being a star without ever having been a starlet. Of Italian parentage, she was born and raised in Tunis. In 1959 she was given a free trip to the Venice Film Festival for winning a local beauty contest. She was immediately offered movie contracts by some of Italy’s top producers. But contradicting the usual beauty queen dream, Claudia insisted she didn’t want to be in movies. It was not until the producers persuaded her parents that she reluctantly agreed to accept the leading roles that were offered her.

Then she visited the Cannes Film Festival. Voila! contracts for star parts in French movies. Americans discovered her last year when her film, Rocco and His Brothers, opened in U.S. art theaters. La Bombe Cardinale has now been hailed everywhere as “the dark-haired Brigitte.” Unmarried, Claudia lives wherever she is making a movie; she hopes eventually to settle in Paris.

Jean-Paul Belmondo arrived at his present fame by a most unlikely route: he began as a professional boxer. Son of a well-known Parisian sculptor, Jean-Paul twice had his nose broken, and then, to his parents’ relief, gave up the ring for the Paris Conservatoire of Drama.

But even at the staid academy Jean-Paul devoted as much time to his horseplay as to study. Although his fellow students recognized his special talent for tough-tender roles, his professors were less impressed. When they failed to award him the highest acting award of his class at year’s end (for a performance that satirized the faculty), the student body booed and lifted their precocious hero onto their shoulders and carried him out of the auditorium.

After military service with the French army in Algeria, Jean-Paul landed several bit parts on the stage before he wona featured role in the film A Double Tour. It was after seeing him in this picture that director Godard gambled on using him in the co-starring role in Breathless.

Within months, Belmondo became the most important new star on the Continent. He made an incredible five pictures in 1960 and another five in 1961. And one of them, Two Women, with Sophia Loren, confirmed his fame when it was released last year in the United States to critical and audience acclaim.

After each day’s shooting on Cartouche, Belmondo returned to his Paris apartment. He and his wife Elodie have been married for eight years and have two young daughters. A reporter once asked him what he looks for in a woman. Jean-Paul answered, “I seek tenderness, tranquility, sweetness and gaiety. Physically, I like what my wife best represents: a beautiful face and lovely, lovely legs.”

Of Belmondo his wife says, “He is more than a good husband and father. He’s a friend and lover as well.”

And like co-star CC, Belmondo has a movie screen vitality that speaks louder than words.

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High Resolution Original Scans

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