Dominique Zardi

Actor · died at 79

Profile

Age at death	79
Birth date	March 2, 1930
Birthplace	10th arrondissement of Paris
Died	December 13, 2009
Place of death	Paris
Profession	Actor, Writer
Zodiac sign	Pisces

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Dominique Zardi — Biography

Dominique Zardi was one of those French screen actors whose face audiences knew better than his name. From the late 1940s until his death he turned up in hundreds of productions, usually in small parts, and most often as a gangster, a policeman or an ordinary clerk. His role in the Fantômas series, in which Louis de Funès and Jean Marais starred, brought him to the widest audience.

His busiest years were the 1960s. Claude Chabrol and Jean-Pierre Mocky cast him again and again, and he appeared in Chabrol's Madame Bovary and Violette Nozière. He also took part in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le fou, Masculin Féminin and Une femme est une femme, and in Que la bête meure, The Champagne Murders and Diary of a Chambermaid from the same period. In many of these films he shared the cast with his fellow character actor Henri Attal. He kept working in later decades, in films such as Claudine and Le Fils, and was still on screen in Vidocq at the start of the 2000s.

Acting was not his only outlet. He composed melodies heard in several of Chabrol's films, wrote about ten novels and worked as a sports journalist. Born in Paris, he died there in 2009. He was related to the director and actress Agnès Jaoui.

Last reviewed: November 6, 2026

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