More than 20,000 euros were collected in three days from admirers of the emblematic actor of the New Wave Jean-Pierre Léaud, 79, who is in a precarious financial, moral and physical situation, according to his relatives. He assured AFP via his agent on Wednesday that he was “much better”, and thanked the dozens of people who answered the call from relatives worrying about him, paying more than 18,000 euros. The initiative was born from the spontaneous mobilization of relatives. Cinema professionals contributed and then an online kitty was opened, which on Wednesday exceeded the objectives set at 15,000 euros and raised more than 20,000 euros. 436 people took part. More than 100 comments from fans, moved by the situation, were shared on the kitty site.
The actor is in “a physically and morally dilapidated state”, explained to AFP the former director of the Cinémathèque Française, Serge Toubiana. “He said to me, come see me, come to my rescue,” he said, explaining that he found him very affected, in the Paris apartment of his wife, herself “very tired”. “I asked him what would make them happy. He told me that they would have to go out in the sun, swim, ”he continues. Inseparable from the cinema of François Truffaut, who created for him the character of Antoine Doinel, from 400 blows to Love on the Run, Léaud was very affected by the successive disappearance of the great figures of the time. “After the death of (Jean-Luc) Godard, he was very affected, he could not even speak,” says Mr. Toubiana.
In March, “he told me that he needed friends, that he was very sad since the disappearance of Jean-Luc (Godard), which he felt separated him even more from Truffaut “, his tutelary figure who launched his career at not even fifteen years old, also explained to AFP Armand Hennon. The latter leads the association of friends of Truffaut and has decided to broaden the appeal via the online kitty. “We are going to give him this money and see what his most urgent needs are,” he added, explaining that he did not know exactly the financial situation of Léaud, who is no longer able to work, and whose career was very choppy.
In addition to the stay in the sun, it will be a question, for example, of having a home helper who can “take care of him”, added Mr. Toubiana, adding that neither Jean-Pierre Léaud nor his wife were in immediately in a position to express themselves on these initiatives. More than sixty years after the New Wave, Jean-Pierre Léaud is the best known of the still living faces of this movement which revolutionized cinema. At the end of May, another figure, the discreet director Jacques Rozier, died at the age of 96, two years after being the subject of a solidarity movement because he was evicted from his accommodation.
