Pierre Tornade passed away this morning at the age of 82, in the hospital of
Rambouillet, following an accidental fall. He is a great gentleman of the
cinema that goes away from our screens but also from our lives. For
generations of French, he will have been this eternally positive and
friendly, this familiar comic and guy who made them escort between
1960 and 1990. With his Gallic mustache, with his warm voice he
lent to the character of Obelix in the films of Asterix, he had conquered a
broad public.
He never took himself seriously, in any film or play that
as popular as they may be. Captain Dumont in the movie series La
7th Company, Commissioner Faroux in the TV series Nestor Burma,
each of his characters was the incarnation of a touching Tornado Stone,
communicative, nourished by the most spicy salt of life.