Romain Gary
Birth : 1914-05-21, Vilna, Russian Empire [now Vilnius, Lithuania]
Death : 1980-12-02
History
Romain Gary (21 May [O.S. 8 May] 1914 – 2 December 1980), born Roman Kacew, and also known by the pen name Émile Ajar), was a French novelist, diplomat, film director, and World War II aviator. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt under two names. He is considered a major writer of French literature of the second half of the 20th century. He was married to Lesley Blanch, then Jean Seberg.
Gary was born Roman Kacew (Yiddish: רומן קצב Roman Katsev, Russian: Рома́н Ле́йбович Ка́цев, Roman Leibovich Katsev) in Vilnius (at that time in the Russian Empire). In his books and interviews, he presented many different versions of his parents' origins, ancestry, occupation and his own childhood. His mother, Mina Owczyńska (1879—1941), was a Jewish actress from Švenčionys (Svintsyán) and his father was a businessman named Arieh-Leib Kacew (1883—1942) from Trakai (Trok), also a Lithuanian Jew. The couple broke in 1925 and Arieh-Leib remarried. Gary later claimed that his actual father was the celebrated actor and film star Ivan Mosjoukine, with whom his actress mother had worked and to whom he bore a striking resemblance. Mosjoukine appears in his memoir Promise at Dawn. Deported to central Russia in 1915, they stayed in Moscow until 1920. They later returned to Vilnius, then moved on to Warsaw. When Gary was fourteen, he and his mother emigrated illegally to Nice, France. Converted to Catholicism by his mother, Gary studied law, first in Aix-en-Provence and then in Paris. He learned to pilot an aircraft in the French Air Force in Salon-de-Provence and in Avord Air Base, near Bourges. ...
Source: Article "Romain Gary" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Novel
As the country explodes under racial tensions after the assassination of Martin Luther King, writer Romain Gary, humanist and animal lover, and his wife, star Jean Seberg, civil rights activist, welcome an abandoned dog into their home, trained to jump at the mouths of blacks: a White Dog.
Novel
In seaside Italy, a Holocaust survivor with a daycare business takes in a 12-year-old street kid who recently robbed her.
Novel
From his childhood in Poland to his adolescence in Nice to his years as a student in Paris and his tough training as a pilot during World War II, this tragi-comedy tells the romantic story of Romain Gary, one of the most famous French novelists and sole writer to have won the Goncourt Prize for French literature two times.
Self (archive footage)
Neïla Salah grew up in Créteil, a tower block suburb on the outskirts of Paris, and dreams of becoming a lawyer. She has been accepted into a major university in Paris and on her first day there she is confronted by Pierre Mazard, a professor known for his provocative behavior and blunders.
To make amends for an incident, he accepts to help Neïla prepare for a prestigious competition in courtroom eloquence. Both cynical and demanding, Pierre could become the mentor who she needs... But first both must overcome their prejudices.
Himself (archive footage)
A struggling writer finds a shortcut to fame, but a blackmailer threatens to ruin his perfect life.
Novel
Re-adaptation of the novel by Emile Ajar (Romain Gary). The story of the Arab orphan boy Momo and the aged prostitute Madame Rosa, who survived Auschwitz.
Novel
This comedy was shot in Tahiti. It focuses on the rocky relationship between Cohn, a local con man, and author Jack Baker who wants to profile Paul Gauguin in an upcoming book. Cohn, an obnoxious crook and pathological liar originally from Paris, has been the bane of the local population for years, yet despite his annoyances they will not arrest him. Hearing that Cohn owns an authentic Gauguin, Jack Baker makes his acquaintance. They do not get off to a great start, but eventually become friends after Cohn's secret is discovered.
Novel
In the midst of World War II, Nazi officer Otto Schatz declares the execution of Jewish music-hall comedian Genghis Cohn. Many years later, Otto is comfortably retired into the life of a highly respected police commissioner, and is investigating a series of murders when he encounters the ghost of Genghis Cohn. The haunting turns into a taunting, and before he knows it, Schatz is slowly driven mad as he is lured into a trap.
Story
A trainer attempts to retrain a vicious dog that’s been raised to kill black people.
Novel
Set within the super-rich jet-set society of Paris, Richard Harris portrays a man whose life is gradually being destroyed. From sexual trauma to financial disaster, he slowly descends into a world of insanity, perversion and finally the bottomless pit!
Novel
Having both suffered extreme losses, a man and a woman try to form a relationship.
Novel
Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He's a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act.
Writer
Interpol investigates the freelance killings of drug and porn peddlers.
Director
Interpol investigates the freelance killings of drug and porn peddlers.
Novel
A ski instructor tries to teach a bunch of insanely eccentric people how to ski while dealing with everyone wanting his attention.
Novel
A single mother raises her son in impossible circumstances first in Leningrad, then Krakow, and then France, and is over-ambitious about him but never gives in.
Writer
A young woman, unsatisfied by her husband, searches for sex in the brothels of a seaside town.
Director
A young woman, unsatisfied by her husband, searches for sex in the brothels of a seaside town.
Novel
Lady L is an elegant 80-year-old woman who recalls her amorous life story, including past loves and lusty, scandalous adventures she has lived through.
Writer
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"
Novel
A film director turns his actress wife into a star, leading to marital problems.
Screenplay
In Fort Lamy, French Equitorial Africa, idealist Morel launches a one-man campaign to preserve the African elephant from extinction, which he sees as the last remaining "roots of Heaven." At first, he finds only support from Minna, hostess of the town's only night club, who is in love with him, and a derelict ex-British Army Major, Forsythe. His crusade gains momentum and he is soon surrounded by an odd assortment of characters: Cy Sedgewick, an American TV commentator who becomes impressed and rallies world-wide support; a U.S. photographer, Abe Fields, who is sent to do a picture story on Morel and stays on to follow his ideals; Saint Denis, a government aide ordered to stop Morel; Orsini, a professional ivory hunter whose vested interests aren't the same as Morel's; and Waitari, leader of a Pan-African movement who follows Morel only for the personal good it will do his own campaign.
Novel
In Fort Lamy, French Equitorial Africa, idealist Morel launches a one-man campaign to preserve the African elephant from extinction, which he sees as the last remaining "roots of Heaven." At first, he finds only support from Minna, hostess of the town's only night club, who is in love with him, and a derelict ex-British Army Major, Forsythe. His crusade gains momentum and he is soon surrounded by an odd assortment of characters: Cy Sedgewick, an American TV commentator who becomes impressed and rallies world-wide support; a U.S. photographer, Abe Fields, who is sent to do a picture story on Morel and stays on to follow his ideals; Saint Denis, a government aide ordered to stop Morel; Orsini, a professional ivory hunter whose vested interests aren't the same as Morel's; and Waitari, leader of a Pan-African movement who follows Morel only for the personal good it will do his own campaign.
A commander suspects his wife of infidelity, when she turns to a subordinate officer to help her against someone threatening to blackmail her about her troubled past.
