Born François Pillu in Paris in 1919, the son of a wine shop manager. At 14, his letter to Louis Jouvet led to the legendary star aiding him to enter the Cours Simon and Le Conservatoire. Still in his teens, Perier's second film launched him decisively, in a major supporting role with superstars Jouvet and Arletty, plus Annabella, Jean-Pierre Aumont, and Bernard Blier, in Marcel Carné's Hotel du Nord.
In Clair's Le silence est d'or (1947), he stole the girl from Maurice Chevalier, and on stage in 1948 he created the part of Hugo in Sartre's Les Mains Sales. In 1950 he apppeared in Cocteau's Orphée, and in 1956 won the British Academy Award as Maria Schell's dipso husband in René Clément's acclaimed adaptation of Zola's Gervaise, observing patients in asylums in the grip of the DTs in the course of his research.
He was originally imposed on Fellini for Nights of Cabiria (1957) by the French coproducers, but he agreed completely after only seeing a photo in a casting directory, adding a moustache, a toothpick, and sunglasses to provide the extra air of ingratiating menace. Before Z he first worked for Costa-Gavras in Un homme de trop in 1967, the same year he played the Inspector on the trail of Alain Delon in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai; he later appeared in Melville's classic heist film Le Cercle Rouge. Over the years he appeared several times for Claude Autant-Lara, and in Chabrol's Just avant la nuit, and Resnais' Stavisky, and as Cardinal Mazarin in a TV mini-series bio. He died in Paris in 2002.
Rialto Pictures
