Michel Modo

Michel Modo

Birth : 1937-03-30, Carpentras, Vaucluse, France

Death : 2008-09-24

History

Michel Modo, born Michel Henri Louis Goi at Carpentras (Vaucluse) (born March 30, 1937 - died September 25, 2008), was a French actor and humorist. Modo died of cancer on September 25, 2008 in Vaires-sur-Marne (Seine-et-Marne). He is best known in France for having formed in the late 1950s a comedy duo, Grosso et Modo, with actor Guy Grosso. The duo appeared in many movies with Louis de Funès, among which the series of Gendarmes de Saint Tropez, where he will played the role of Constable Berlicot alongside Michel Galabru, Jean Lefebvre and Christian Marin. They were also Laflûte and Quince in The Dream of a Summer Night by Jean-Christophe Averty. Between 1993 and 1997 he is one of the recurring actors in the television series Highlander as Maurice Lolande, humorous character characterizing the average French person. In December 2005, he stars in the television series Plus belle la vie alongside Colette Renard. He plays a bum philosopher disguised as Santa Claus. He also dubbed several recurring characters in the French version of the animated series The Simpsons. At his sudden death in 2008 at the age of 71, when dubbing the last episodes of season 19, he was replaced on the spot by Gérard Rinaldi, who died in his turn from cancer on March 2, 2012.

Profile

Michel Modo
Michel Modo

Movies

Poltergay
Henri "Nanny" Bernier
Marc and Emma move into a new house but have no idea that their basement was a gay nightclub. To make matters worse, the club was destroyed by fire, and now the house is haunted by the ghosts of five gay clubbers.
The Masked Avenger: Lagardere
Ambassadeur
France, 17th century, during the reign of Louis XIII. When a dear friend, the Duke of Nevers, is treacherously assassinated by a powerful relative, a skilled swordsman, the noble Henri de Lagardère, seeks his rightful vengeance as he tries to protect the innocent life of the duke's last heir.
Louis de Funès ou le pouvoir de faire rire
Self
A documentary on Louis de Funès based on unseen archives and film extracts, interviews from close friends and comedy specialists.
Highlander The Series - Counterfeit
Maurice (credit only)
Horton, an old mortal enemy, puts a criminal through plastic surgery to make her look like Tessa. The false Tessa sets Duncan up for the final death.
Faites comme chez nous
Georges Despeu, an employee without stature or fortune, is about to receive his daughter Barbara whom he has not seen since her early childhood. She returns from the United States to meet her father. With the complicity of his brother, guardian of the Monjambier's property, Georges decides to settle in the luxurious villa and to play the rich owner not to disappoint his daughter. Things get complicated when, on the one hand, two gangsters on the run take refuge in the villa, and on the other hand, Mr. Monjambier decides to try his luck with his secretary and also arrives at the villa to spend a fraudulent weekend.
Faites comme chez nous
Author
Georges Despeu, an employee without stature or fortune, is about to receive his daughter Barbara whom he has not seen since her early childhood. She returns from the United States to meet her father. With the complicity of his brother, guardian of the Monjambier's property, Georges decides to settle in the luxurious villa and to play the rich owner not to disappoint his daughter. Things get complicated when, on the one hand, two gangsters on the run take refuge in the villa, and on the other hand, Mr. Monjambier decides to try his luck with his secretary and also arrives at the villa to spend a fraudulent weekend.
Bienvenue à Bellefontaine
Persouard
Sentenced to ten years in prison for a murder he did not commit, Gaëtan Lantier has just been cleared thanks to the confession the real criminal made before he died. Back in Bellefontaine, his village, the good man is the host of a party organized in his honor. As a gift, the mayor and the inhabitants give him a magnificent hunting rifle. At first disconcerted, Gaëtan pulls himself together and tells the audience that his years of imprisonment give him the right to kill the biggest bastard in the village. Most of the inhabitants have something to reproach themselves with and fear being taken for the silhouette, the one who witnessed the murder but never made himself known, even though his testimony would have cleared Gaëtan. Fear invades Bellefontaine and everyone tries to coax Gaëtan with attentions and gifts.
My Mother's Castle
Postman
My Mother's Castle (Le chateau de ma mere) is a sequel and companion piece to My Father's Glory (La Gloire de Mon Pere), both based on the childhood recollections of Marcel Pagnol. Like its predecessor, the movie explores the adventures of the young Marcel during his summers at the family summer home in Provence.
My Father's Glory
Postman
French adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's memoirs of his childhood in the countryside, early in the century.
The Female Executioner
Commissioner
Martine is a tough female cop trying to solve the kidnapping of young Caroline by a gang of pornographers. She already has an accomplice inside the gang feeding her information, but progress is hindered by her own police commissioner. In her private live, Martine likes to hang around with her male colleagues, swapping a younger cop for the more mature and experienced Jean.
S.O.S homme seul
Les planqués du régiment
Adjudant Badubec
A young engineer, inventor of a dangerous ping-pong ball, which makes him pursued by the American and Russian secret services, finds refuge in a military camp where his irruption sows some semi-catastrophes.
The Gendarme and the Gendarmettes
Jules Berlicot
Cruchot's police office moves into a new building. They do not only get high tech equipment, but also four young female police officers to educate. All of them scramble to work with them -- and cause pure chaos while being distracted by the fine ladies. Then they get into real trouble when one after the other of their female colleagues is kidnapped.
Les Bidasses aux grandes manœuvres
le sergent Merlin
Pétrole ! Pétrole !
Alain Terrieur
Le PDG d'une importante société pétrolière voit ses manoeuvres illicites déjouées par un jeune concurrent dont la femme n'est autre que la fille de son fournisseur arabe.
The Miser
La merluche
Based on Molière's play. The children of Harpagon, Cléante and his sister Elise, are each in love but they still haven't spoken to their father yet. Harpagon is a miser who wants to choose the right man and the right woman for his children. When Cléante, at last, tries to speak to Harpagon, the old man informs the family that he wants to marry Marianne, the young girl loved by Cléante. Unaware of his son's sorrow, Harpagon doesn't understand why Cléante has become so angry with him.
The Fabulous Adventures of the Legendary Baron Munchausen
Cavallo (Voice)
The Fabulous Adventures of the legendary Baron Munchausen is a French animated feature from Jean Image of 1978, inspired by the adventures of Baron Munchausen. Baron Munchausen is wont to bring his friends to tell them about his imaginary exploits.
We'll Grow Thin Together
Le clerc de notaire
Victor is a screenwriter whose last work about the Marechal Pétain is refused by his producer. To add insult to injury, he tells Victor he is paunchy. The unfortunate man becomes obsessed by his weight. He goes out of his way to lose pounds, abetted by his wife, Corinne, who puts him on a reducing diet. He must also go to a health center where he takes exercise. Nothing really works. And one day, in a brewery, he cannot withstand his diet anymore and he has a gastronomic meal. Desperate, he tries his luck at a weight watchers reunion.
The Gendarme and the Creatures from Outer Space
Jules Berlicot
The bungling inspector Cruchot finds himself trying to save the residents of St. Tropez from some oil-drinking humanoid aliens. The only way to tell the aliens from the real people, besides their constant thirst for oil-products, is that they sound like empty garbage cans when you touch them. Chaos is ahead.
Liebesgrüße aus der Lederhose 5. Teil: Die Bruchpiloten vom Königssee
Konrad Zillich
Les coucous
Georges Despeu
Les coucous
Author
Sadsacks In the Boarding School
Sergent Michaud
1978, France. Young recruits are secretly digging an underground tunnel to get to the boarding school for girls, located in front of their barracks. Sexual girls are digging a tunnel towards...
The Centipede Is Tap Dancing
Le gendarme
When they get wind that Herman Goering wants the Venus de Milo statue removed from the Louvre and added to his private collection of stolen artworks, three Frenchmen decide to take action.
The Smurfs and the Magic Flute
Pirlouit (voice)
The evil knight Torchesac, who is at the service of the sinister lord of La Mortaille, gets a very powerful magic flute and uses it for evil purposes. Johan and Pirlouit, assisted by the magician Homnibus, travel to the land of the Smurfs, the only manufacturers of this sort of instrument, to get a new one and battle the usurpers.
The Seventh Company Has Been Found
Le soldat allemand 'groupir'
The second part of the Seventh Company adventures.
The Funny Guys in a Crazy World
Writer
The viscount Galmiche de Quoibedec and his wife have today the engagement party of their daughter.Suddenly The viscount leaves the house, tries to drive his car, but there is great traffic jam.At the same time Alexandre Ladislas Ladretsky, the pianist needs to go to the television.The viscount steals a taxi , Alexandre jumps in the taxi and the owner of a perfume shop jump also into the taxi.Some minutes later two gangsters kidnapped the viscount, the pianist and the young woman of the perfume shop.
Musidora
Anatole Biscarlet
Jean-Christophe Averty, a French television director and video artist pioneeer, retraces here the life story of Musidora, known for her signature role in the adventure serial.
Ubu enchaîné
Father Ubu, grotesque king and symbol of the tyranny of power in Ubu king, decides to become a slave to acquire real power. This is the first sequel to "Ubu roi" (1965) directed by Averty.
The Gendarme Takes Off
Jules Berlicot
The whole clique of Cruchot's police station is retired. Now he lives with his rich wife in her castle - and is bored almost to death. He fights with the butler, because he isn't even allowed to do the simple works. But when one of the clique suffers from amnesia after an accident, all of the others reunite and kidnap him, to take him on a tour to their old working places and through their memories. In their old uniforms they turn St. Tropez upside down.
The Gendarme Gets Married
Jules Berlicot
The Saint-Tropez police launch a major offensive against dangerous drivers. Marechal Cruchot (Louis de Funès) relishes the assignment, which he pursues with a manic zeal. Cruchot is after an offending driver, who turns out to be Josépha (Claude Gensac), the widow of a highly regarded police colonel. When they meet, Cruchot falls instantly in love....
The Little Bather
Screenplay
Louis-Philippe Fourchaume, another typical lead-role for French comedy superstar Louis de Funès, is the dictatorial CEO of a French company which designs and produces sail yachts, and fires in yet another tantrum his designer André Castagnier, not realizing that man is his only chance to land a vital contract with the Italian magnate Marcello Cacciaperotti. So he has to find him at his extremely rural birthplace in 'la France profonde', which proves a torturous odyssey for the spoiled rich man; when he does get there his torment is far from over: the country bumpkin refuses to resume his slavish position now the shoe is on the other foot, so Fourchaume is dragged along in the boorish family life, and at times unable to control his temper, which may cost him more credit then he painstakingly builds up...
Rita the Field Marshal
Fritz Vogel's Assistant
A waitress helps a scientist flee the Nazis.
Shock Troops
Le juif torturé
A French resistance group frees twelve captured soldiers from a German prison camp, but apparently there is an additional prisoner among them who is suspected of being an enemy spy.
Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At!
The cross-eyed German soldier
During World War II, two French civilians and a downed British Bomber Crew set out from Paris to cross the demarcation line between Nazi-occupied Northern France and the South. From there they will be able to escape to England. First, they must avoid German troops - and the consequences of their own blunders.
The Restaurant
Petit Roger, un serveur
A great French restaurant's owner, Monsieur Septime, is thrust into intrigue and crime, when one of his famous guests disappears.
The Gendarme in New York
Jules Berlicot
The second installment of Gendarmes series, tells the story of Sergeant Cruchot, who, together with his faithful comrades, has been sent to the International Congress of Gendarmerie in N.Y.
Killer Spy
L'autre agent à bicyclette qui verbalise
The most secret agent Stanislas Dubois, tired of saving the world alone decides to retire and to start writing his memoirs. The enemies of humanity, progress and peace in the world found out about it and created an international network of espionage "13 columns". Unfortunately they platted a slot in the good old France. They should think better...
Under Your Hat
Le collègue de François-Joseph
An illegal gambling den where players can lose millions... and the owners make their fortune.
The Sucker
Customs officer
In this Frenco-Italian gangster parody, a shop keeper on his way to an Italian holiday suffers a crash which totals his car. The culprit can only compensate his ruined trip by driving an American friends car from Napels to Bordeaux, but as it happens to be filled with such contraband as stolen money, jewelry and drugs, the involuntary and unwitting companions in crime soon attract all but recreational attention from the "milieu".
Les Gorilles
A cycling agent
A confused pair of airport luggage carriers get involved in the disappearance of some suitcases.
Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez
Jules Berlicot
The ambitious police officer Cruchot is transferred to St. Tropez. He's struggling with crimes such as persistent nude swimming, but even more with his teenage daughter, who's trying to impress her rich friends by telling them her father was a millionaire and owned a yacht in the harbor.
La cloche
The misfortune of a young man who tries to keep a rendezvous and finds himself a prisoner in a bell.
Bébert et l'omnibus
Un gendarme (sous le nom Modo)
All the Gold in the World
Tony
Businessman Victor Hardy wants to buy the entire area around the small village of Cabosse. He claims that he wants to return to nature, but he also intends to profit by selling the water from the village fountain, which is reputed to enhance longevity. However old farmer Mathieu and his sons don't want to sell...
The American Beauty
Slovak
Marcel, a simple-minded factory worker, is tricked into buying a high-priced American convertable car by a widow determined not to let it fall into the hands of her late husband's secretary/secret lover. Once in pocession of the car, Marcel only encounters one bad luck episode after another with the excessive gasoline consumtion, his wife trying to sell it to make ammends meet, getting into traffic jams, accidently riding into a car wash with the top down, and more