Rouleau, Raymond

(1904-1981)

   Actor and director. Raymond Rouleau made his film debut at the end of the sound era with a small part in Marcel L'Herbier's silent classic, L 'Argent (1928). He built his screen career throughout the 1930s with a steady series of supporting roles in films such as Léo Joannen's Suzanne (1932), which Rouleau codirected, André Charlot and Alexander Esway's Le Jugement de minuit (1932), Jean-Paul Paulin's La Femme nue (1932), Viktor Tourjansky's Volga en flammes (1934), Marc Allegret's Les Beaux jours (1935), Pierre Chenal's L'Affaire Lafarge (1938), Georg Wilhelm Pabst's Le Drame de Shanghaï(1938), Pierre Fresnay's Le Duel (1939), and Léonide Moguy's Conflit (1939).

   Rouleau began the 1940s with roles in films such as Christian-Jacque's Premier bal (1941) and L'Assassinat du Père Noël (1941), Maurice Tourneur's Mam'zelle Bonaparte (1942), and Robert Vernay's La Femme que j'ai la plus aimée (1942). By the mid-1940s, Rouleau moved from supporting actor to lead actor status, attracting starring roles in a number of films, including L'Herbier and Jacques de Baroncelli's L 'Honorable Catherine (1943), Jacques Daniel-Norman's L'Aventure est au coin de la rue (1944), Jacques Becker's Falbalas (1945), Richard Pottier's Vertiges (1947), and André Hunébelle's Mission à Tanger (1949). Rouleau reprised the character of detective Georges Masse, played in Hunébelle's film, in later films including Méfiez-vous des blondes (1950) and Massacre en dentelles (1952). The type suited him well and he went on to play other hardboiled characters in Gilles Grangier's Les Femmes sont folles (1950), Henri Verneuil's Brelan d'as (1952), Henri Decoin's Les Intrigantes (1954), and Maurice Cloche's Le Fric (1959). Rouleau had small roles in a handful of films in the 1960s, including Jean-Pierre Mocky's La Grande frousse (1964). He gave up screen acting after 1965.

   In addition to acting, Rouleau directed a number of films, including Une vie perdue (1933), Le Messager (1937), and the musical dance film Les Amants de Teruel (1962). During the 1970s and early 1980s, he directed television productions and he also directed for the theater. Rouleau also wrote the screenplay for Les Amants de Teruel (1962) and for several of his television productions. He continued working in television until his death.