Daniel Auteuil

Born: January 24 1950
Where: Alger, Algeria

Auteuil's breakthrough performance came as the scheming farmer Ugolin in the international hit Jean de Florette.

The actor, who won a Best Actor Cesar and a best supporting actor BAFTA, reprised the role in the equally successful follow-up Manon Des Sources.

He also met Emmanuelle Beart onset, with whom he was to have a ten-year relationship and a daughter.

The son of opera singers, he started his career in musical comedy and made his film debut in 1972.

The twin trimphs of Jean and Manon made him a bankable star but not after he'd appeared in forgettable comedies such as Let's Make A Dirty Movie.

His portrayals of troubled characters went on to find expression in such films as Un Coeur en Hiver, for which he won the European Film Academy's Best Actor award.

In Ma Saison Préférée he earned a Cesar nomination for his role, with Catherine Deneuve, of siblings with an unnatural bond.

In La Séparation he portrayed a husband suffering a nervous breakdown and in La Reine Margot he played the cuckolded Henri of Navarre.

He was again cast as Deneuve's brother in the crime caper Les Voleurs and made one of his few English forays in Chris Menges' The Lost Son.

Next he collaborated with director Patrice Leconte on La fille sur le pont, playing a knife-thrower who crosses Europe with a suicidal Vanessa Paradis.

He played the title role in Sade, a biopic of the Marquis de Sade and starred opposite Gerard Depardieu in the excellent comedy The Closet.

Recent work has included murder mystery The Adversary and the romantic comedy Petite Coupures opposite Kristin Scott Thomas.