Marc Eyraud

With a physical appearance midway between determination (a square face, a mane of wavy dark hair) and lack of energy (commonplace facial features, banal figure), French thespian Marc Eyraud got cast more often as the man next door than as the epic hero. His average Joe look, leaning rather on the serious side, made him don the costume of chauffeur, educator, bartender and also, more than once, of priests, doctors and other booksellers. On the other hand, he occasionally took a walk on the wild side (clothes do not make the man!), exerting everyday racism (Élise ou la vraie vie (1970)) or going as far as to send his fellow man to kingdom come (the executioner in “Vidocq et Compagnie”). Only twice did he embody a famous figure (Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Valmy – 1ere partie: La chute de la royauté (1967), King Arthur for Rohmer). Such an aptitude to be indistinguishable, while being a blessing for those film directors who are eager to create the illusion of reality, proves a curse for actors like him playing mostly lackluster characters: supporting actors indeed tend to disappear from our memories, a fact unfair though inevitable. Which would have been Marc Eyraud’s lot if television had not come to his rescue. The fact remains that, fortunately for him, he was chosen to appear in the famous long-lasting TV series “Les cinq dernières minutes”. Thus, from 1974 to 1992, episode after episode (73 in total), French TV viewers grew accustomed to him and learned to like his no-nonsense presence, first as police inspector Ménardeau, deputy to senior detective Le Carré (played by Christian Barbier) and as “commissaire” Ménardeau, his replacement, in further installments. Among his other performances, lesser-known but remarkable, are those of Bernard, an entomology enthusiast who finds a water strider only to find it (her?) metamorphosing into… a beautiful naked girl in Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe’s excellent L’araignée d’eau (1970) and of course of King Arthur in Éric Rohmer’s Perceval le Gallois (1978), alongside Fabrice Luchini. Marc Eyraud’s career, if not prestigious, lasted long. He even played in his old age a part in… his retirement home. Titled La sonate des spectres (2015), the movie was released only in 2015, over a decade after it was made, making it Eyraud’s appearance in a “new” film long after 15 February 2005, the day he died at 80.