2023-05-09 06:01:00
The death of Michel Cordes, 77, discovered committed suicide on May 5, 2023 in his house in Grabels, near Montpellier, plunged into sadness the many fans of the France 3 series, but also his relatives, in Hérault, like Jean-Christophe Causse, who may have played a key role in the actor’s new career.
“He told me several times that it made it easier for him to access More beautiful life.” Four days following the suicide in Grabels, near Montpellier, of Michel Cordes, who played one of the leading roles in the France 3 television series, the Hérault journalist and publisher Jean-Christophe Causse in turn wishes to pay tribute to him , recalling a little-known episode in the actor’s career.
“We wrote a little script”
In 2003, this owner of the professional daily Wine Daypublished since 1927, decides to launch into video, to illustrate “stories that old people told when there was no television, in the last century. We wrote a little script, and we looked for actors.”
For the first and only episode of this series, baptized Babazou, Jean-Christophe Crausse thus finds himself exploring in Montpellier a file compiled by the Region with intermittent performers and a few actors.
With the future Captain Marquez by Candice Renoir
“We found fabulous characters there, like Michel Cordes or Olivier Cabassut”, the future Captain Marquez by Candice Renoir. Michel Cordes is offered the role of a notary: “Michel had an image of seriousness, which he may not actually be, but it was on his face, he stuck completely to the character.” The filming takes place in two weeks at the Domaine du Soriech, in Lattes, at the restaurant Michel Loustau.
No one gets paid on set
“It was a team of friends who made a little film to try to master our new work tool” smiles Jean-Christophe Causse, who looks with emotion at these images of the past, on his incredible old boat, the Amadeus, moored on a quay in Sète.
“We filmed everything with a team of five or six people, it was easy to do for artisan producers like us.” On the set, no one is paid, but everyone leaves with their Babazou VHF tape.
Michel Cordes was worried regarding his end of career
“Michel was happy. He was in the business, but he was just over 60 years old, he was starting to worry regarding the end of his career. He didn’t think he would have much chance of working. And so he left directly with his tape under his arm to the casting of Plus Belle la vie in Marseille. He did not need to do a test to present himself, he gave the tape, and he was selected!
“He said to me: I live once more!”
This role of the boss of the Bar du Mistral will completely change the life of the Hérault actor. “When I ran into him once more, he said to me: I’m alive once more. He was happy like a kid. He was very well paid, and for him it was a fabulous adventure. His professional life, he lived it from that moment there, apart of course from his extraordinary performance in Babazou” smiles Jean-Christophe Causse.
A little wink of fate: in one of his scenes, the notary played by Michel Cordes serves a glass of orange wine to one of his interlocutors, who has come for a consultation.
4600 episodes in 18 years
“He was a dough, not pretentious guy at all, really a nice boy.” Who probably had trouble managing the end of the series and his career, following the stop of Plus Belle la vie. “In the world of series, it was one of the number 1: 4600 episodes! Even Dallas, they only made 450. How to recover from it, when in addition you are ejected? How to bounce back following that ?” asks Jean-Christophe Causse.
The character of Roland Marci, played by Michel Cordes, one of the few to have been present in the 18 seasons of the soap opera had disappeared in the last weeks of the series, and had returned for a final passage where he would die on screen , before the definitive end of this long and extraordinary television adventure.
The ruthless world of television
“He was a guy of total simplicity, he was not pedantic, he did a job that was not normal, but by being normal. TV is wild, whoever you are, we release you if it doesn’t work not, even following 40 years in the business.”
And he refuses to pass any judgment on the actor’s decision to end his life.
“I put myself in the place of the guy who will end up like this, following being at the highest. It’s not easy. His disappointment in love was the trigger, but he also stopped at the top of his thing , by escaping decline. It’s not easy to grow old in these professions.”
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