Pierre Renoir


Pierre Renoir was a French stage and film actor. He was the son of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and elder brother of the film director Jean Renoir. He is also noted for being the first actor to play Georges Simenon's character Inspector Jules Maigret.

Life and career

Pierre Renoir was born on 21 March 1885 in Paris, at 18 rue Houdon, about a hundred meters from place Pigalle, to painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Aline Charigot.
For his best remembered role, as Jėricho the ragman in Children of Paradise, he was cast at short notice to replace the collaborator Robert Le Vigan; Jėricho's scenes had to be reshot after Le Vigan fled. Renoir was briefly the director of the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris, taking over after the death of Louis Jouvet in 1951. Pierre Renoir's son was the cinematographer Claude Renoir not to be confused with Pierre's brother Claude Renoir, known as 'Coco'.

Selected filmography