Robert Hossein
Robert Hossein (30 December 1927 – 31 December 2020) was a French film actor, director, and writer. He directed the 1982 adaptation of Les Misérables and appeared in Vice and Virtue, Le Casse, Les Uns et les Autres and Venus Beauty Institute. His other roles include Michèle Mercier's husband in the Angélique series, a gunfighter in the Spaghetti Western Cemetery Without Crosses (which he also directed and co-wrote), and a Catholic priest who falls in love with Claude Jade and becomes a communist in Forbidden Priests.
Also recorded as Robert Hosseinoff
Robert Hossein

Agence7emeart · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Born
- 1927. · 12th arrondissement of Paris.
- Died
- 2020. · Essey-lès-Nancy.
- Nationality
- France.
- Occupation
- screenwriter, actor, writer, director and producer.
- Fields
- acting, directing, film direction and film screenwriting.
- Education
- Cours Simon.
- Teachers
- Tania Balachova.
- Honours
- Commander of the Legion of Honour and Commander of the National Order of Merit.
- Languages
- French and Russian.
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Robert Hossein (30 December 1927 – 31 December 2020) was a French film actor, director, and writer. He directed the 1982 adaptation of Les Misérables and appeared in Vice and Virtue, Le Casse, Les Uns et les Autres and Venus Beauty Institute. His other roles include Michèle Mercier's husband in the Angélique series, a gunfighter in the Spaghetti Western Cemetery Without Crosses (which he also directed and co-wrote), and a Catholic priest who falls in love with Claude Jade and becomes a communist in Forbidden Priests.
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Robert Hossein (1927–2020) was an actor, director and producer, among other activities, of French nationality. The actor was born in 12th arrondissement of Paris and died in Essey-lès-Nancy.
Robert Hossein was educated at Cours Simon. The actor worked in France and lived in Vittel. Activity centred on acting, directing and film direction.
Languages used include French and Russian. Honours include Commander of the Legion of Honour and Commander of the National Order of Merit.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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wikidata · Q375290 · wikipedia · Robert Hossein
In this article
Cinematic career
Cinematic career
Robert Hossein studied at Cours Simon. Training under Tania Balachova is recorded. The recorded working language is French and Russian. The field of work recorded is acting, directing and film direction. Places of work recorded in the authority are France. Residence is recorded at Vittel. Distinctions recorded are Commander of the Legion of Honour and Commander of the National Order of Merit.
Hossein started directing films in 1955 with Les Salauds vont en enfer, from a play by Frédéric Dard whose work he later adapted several times on screen. Right from the start Hossein established his characteristic trademarks: using a seemingly straightforward suspense plot and subverting its conventions (sometimes to the extent of a complete disregard of the traditional demand for a final twist or revelation) in order to concentrate on ritualistic relationships. This is the director's running preoccupation which is always stressed in his films by an extraordinary command of film space and often striking frame compositions where the geometry of human figures and set design is used to accentuate the psychological set-up of the scene. The mechanisms of guilt and the way it destroys relationships is another recurring theme, presumably influenced by Hossein's lifelong interest in the works of Dostoyevsky. In 1967, he was a member of the jury of the 5th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1982 film Les Misérables was entered into the 13th Moscow International Film Festival where it won a Special Prize. Although Hossein had some modest international successes with films like Toi, le venin and The Vampire of Düsseldorf, he was much singled out for scorching criticism by the critics and followers of the New Wave for the unashamedly melodramatic frameworks of his films. The fact that he was essentially an auteur director with a consistent set of themes and an extraordinary mastery of original and unusual approaches to staging his stories, was never appreciated. He was not averse to trying his hand at widely different genres and was never defeated, making the strikingly different Spaghetti Western Cemetery Without Crosses and the low-budgeted but daringly subversive period drama I Killed Rasputin. However, because of the lack of wider success and continuing adverse criticism, Hossein virtually ended his film directing career in 1970, having concentrated on theatre where his achievements were never questioned, and subsequently returning to film directing only twice. With two or three exceptions, his films remain commercially unavailable and very difficult to see.
Personal life
Personal life
Robert Hossein's grandfather was born in Iran. His father was André Hossein, a composer of Iranian Azerbaijani origin, and his mother was Anna Mincovschi (1904–1998), a Jewish comedy actress, born in Kiev, who moved to Paris with her family in 1920s from Soroca (Bessarabia). He was married three times: first to Marina Vlady (then Marina Poliakoff; on 23 December 1955, they had two sons, Pierre and Igor), later on 7 June 1962, to Caroline Eliacheff, daughter of Françoise Giroud (they had a son, Nicholas, who became rabbi Aaron Eliacheff). She was fifteen at the time and he was 34. In 1973, he dated for a short while Michèle Watrin, before she died the following year in a car accident. In 1976, he married actress Candice Patou, with whom he had a son.
Religion
Religion
In 1971, Hossein was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. According to an article written by Emannuel Peze, Hossein experienced a conversion to Catholicism in 1971 during a visit to the Marian apparition at San Damiano in Lombard, Italy. In 2007, he presented a play entitled Do Not Be Afraid (N'ayez pas peur), about the life of Pope John Paul II. He had a special devotion to Saint Therese of Lisieux.
Death
Death
Hossein died of COVID-19 on 31 December 2020, one day after his 93rd birthday, during the COVID-19 pandemic in France.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1988
Robert Hossein et le Theatre (1988) is digitised and catalogued by Open Library.
2020
Robert Hossein died at Essey-lès-Nancy.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Vittel.
Residences
12th arrondissement of Paris.
Birth place
Essey-lès-Nancy.
Death place
Honours
Honours
France: Commander of the Légion d'honneur, 2005
Foreign honours
Foreign honours
Monaco: Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit (2006) Member of Eurasian Academy (2016).

Robert Hossein au festival de Cannes
Georges Biard

La tombe de l'acteur et réalisateur Robert Hossein au cimetière de Vittel dans les Vosges.
Antoine Rex
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.IMDb title 0143851 Les Salauds vont en enfer
- 2.5th Moscow International Film Festival (1967). MIFF.
- 3.13th Moscow International Film Festival (1983). MIFF.
- 4.Ilham Aliyev and President of the French Republic Francois Hollande had dinner together
- 5.Робер Оссейн: «Нашу с Мариной Влади семью погубил русский быт» Shigareva, Yulia (28 August 2013). Argumenty i Fakty.
- 6.Robert Hossein Eurasian Academy official website
- 7.Ilham Aliyev and President of the French Republic Francois Hollande had dinner together. president.az. 12 May 2014.
- 8.Mother's birth record in the office of Kiev municipal rabbi on January 2, 1904 (Julian calendar)
- 9."Robert Hossein et son fils le rabbin Aaron Eliacheff" (10 February 2011) Harissa
- 10.According to the program Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde, presented by Patrick Sébastien on 22 September 2007
- 11.Genealogy of the Hossein-Mincovschi Family
- 12.The International Who's Who 2004
- 13.Robert Hossein, un artiste à la recherche de l'amour de Dieu. www.archivioradiovaticana.va.
- 14.Peze, Emmanuel. (1985) Published in the Marian Collection (1985) by Brother Albert Pfleger, Marist. As reported by the Mary of Nazareth project, at http://www.mariedenazareth.com/8022+M5c143f44345.0.html
- 15.James Mackenzie "French Showman Brings Pope John Paul II to Stage" (20 September 2007) Reuters.
- 16.Pyotr Rozvarin (19 March 2002) "A Pessimist Full of Optimism: An interview with Robert Hossein", Vremya novostei, No. 47 Retrieved 22 December 2007
- 17.Robert Hossein, le géant du théâtre populaire, est mort
- 18.Sovereign Ordonnance n°800 of 18 Nov. 2006 by Prince Albert II
- 19.Eurasian Academy Official Site.
- 20.Archived copy.
References
Citations
References
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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