Death of Gérard Barray, illustrious face of d’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers

The swashbuckling film has just lost one of its braves. Presented as the rival of Jean Marais or the successor of Gérard Philipe, Gérard Barray left us on February 15, aged 92 in Marbella in Spain where he settled in the 1990s. News announced by the journalist and writer Henry-Jean Servat on social networks.

“The magnificent Gérard Barray was, at 30 years old, d'Artagnan and Pardaillan, amazing hero of French adventure and swashbuckling films, 60s. And also, friend of Frédéric Dard, San Antonio. He ascended to heaven, at the age of 92, in Marbella where he resided with his family,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Born on November 2, 1931 in Toulouse, the actor began a career in the theater in the mid-1950s, before immortalizing the face of d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers by Bernard Borderie in 1961, alongside Mylène Demongeot in the role by Milady de Winter. This was followed by Le Chevalier de Pardaillan (1962) and Hardi! Pardaillan (1964), under the direction of the same director. Having become an icon of swashbuckling films, he also played the lead role of Scaramouche in the eponymous 1963 film by Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi.

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In 1966, he moved away from the roles of knights with a big heart and played this truculent character imagined by his friend Frédéric Dard, the commissioner San Antonio in Bad weather for the flies followed by Béru and these ladies?, under the direction of Guy Lefranc .

His career faltered at the same time as the success of swashbuckling films. After a major role in Le Témoin d'Anne Walter (1969), Gérard Barray moved away from the big screen. He nevertheless had a few appearances in films such as Le cinéma de papa (1970) by Claude Berri, and Why? by Anouk Bernard (1977) or Galindez by Gerardo Herrero in 2003, the date marking his last role in the cinema.