We lost French actor Tchéky Karyo (1953-2025) on Halloween. You might not think you recognize the name, but you’ll definitely recognize the face as he’s been a supporting actor in several key frock flicks and the lead in many French ones! Let’s celebrate the work of this prolific and talented actor as we wish him ad astra.
There are many historical productions for which I can’t find images:
- Julien Pierson in Australia (1989)
- Federale Apolloni in Hotel Rome (1996)
- Gabriel Chenoux in My Life So Far (1999)
- Black Coda in Arabian Nights (2000)
- Uncle in Renegade (2004)
- Vautrin in Old Goriot (2004)
- Capitaine Favourier in A Very Long Engagement (2004)
- Le cardinal de Richelieu in The 4 Musketeers (2005)
- Ambroise in Les cerfs-volants (2007)
- Elisha in Mary Magdalene (2018)
- Henri Rousseau in Genius: “Picasso” (2018)
For the rest, here we go!
Augustin in The Return of Martin Guerre (1982)
In 16th-century rural France, a man abandons his family, returns many years later, and is accused of being an impostor. Karyo plays a fellow villager, I think maybe an accuser, but I can’t remember!
Le balafré/André in Le matelot 512 (1984)
A man joins the navy … possibly in the 1920s? I’m unsure.
Etienne de Bourbon in Sorceress (1987)
A Dominican Inquisitor prosecutes a herbal medicine healer as a witch.
Eric Desange in Corps perdus (1989)
“An Argentine architect and a French man fall in love and travel to the mansion that belonged to the architect’s grandmother. Then a subplot is told about a grandmother’s romance with a painter during the 1920s” (IMDB).
Vincent in La fille des collines (1990)
“When Tom returned from the army in the summer of 1958 to his native Pyrenees, he never expected to meet an 18-year-old girl who was causing trouble in the region” (IMDB).
Vincent Van Gogh in Vincent and Me (1990)
A fantasy film in which a modern young girl’s paintings are attributed to Van Gogh, and somehow she goes to 19h-century Arles to meet the painter.
Slimene in Isabelle Eberhardt (1991)
A biopic about the real-life Eberhardt, a Swiss explorer and author who moved to Algeria in 1897 and dressed as a man.
Pinzon in 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
The romanticized take on Christopher Columbus’s voyages to the Caribbean. Martín Alonso Pinzón was a Spanish mariner, shipbuilder, navigator, and explorer who captained the Pinta on Columbus’s first voyage.
Lieutenant Morhange in L’Atlantide (1992)
An adaptation of a 1919 novel about a former soldier “who searches for a man who has disappeared, and comes into contact with a mysterious and attractive queen from an ancient dynasty” (Wikipedia).
Nostradamus in Nostradamus (1994)
A biopic about the famous 16th-century astrologer.
Silas Marner in Les liens du coeur (1996)
A TV movie; based on his character’s name, I’m guessing it’s an adaptation of the 1861 novel of that name by George Eliot?
George Melies in From the Earth to the Moon (1998)
A miniseries about the Apollo space program in the 1960s-70s. The final episode is a pseudo-documentary that’s interspersed with the story of early French film maker Georges Méliès’ creation of his vision of a trip to the Moon, the 1902 film Le Voyage dans la Lune.
Dunois in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)
Jean d’Orléans, Count of Dunois was a French military leader who fought with Joan of Arc.
Jean Villeneuve in The Patriot (2000)
The Mel Gibson as a South Carolina revolutionary war fighter film; Karyo plays a French officer who trains Gibson’s character’s militia.
Molière in Le roi danse (2000)
An Italian musician becomes a sensation at the court of Louis XIV. Molière is, of course, the famous French playwright and actor.
Manius Macrinus Firmus in Kaamelott (2004-09)
A French TV series based on the King Arthur legends. Karyo’s character is the Roman governor of Britain.
Philippe le Bel in Les rois maudits (2005)
An adaptation of the famous-in-France 20th-century-written novel series about the French monarchy in the 14th century. Karyo’s character is Philip IV, king of France (1268-1314).
Le chevalier in Jacquou le croquant (2007)
An adaptation of an 1899 novel set in 1815, in which a young peasant who leads a revolt against an evil nobleman.
Aram in The Lark Farm (2007)
An Italian film about an Armenian family living in Turkey before and during the Armenian Genocide (which took place during World War I).
César in Belle & Sebastian (2013), Belle & Sebastian: The Adventure Continues (2015), & Belle and Sebastian, Friends for Life (2017)
“A six-year-old boy and his dog look to foil a Nazi effort to capture French Resistance fighters” (IMDB).
Papa Giovanni XXII in The Name of the Rose (2019)
The TV miniseries adaptation of the modern novel: “In 1327, an enlightened friar and his young apprentice investigate a series of mysterious deaths at an abbey risking the wrath of a powerful Inquisitor” (IMDB).
Général Duvernet in Women at War (2022)
Various French women’s lives intersect during World War I.
Which of Tchéky Karyo’s many historical roles is most memorable for you?
For someone who is supposed to be posing as a man, fictional Isabelle Eberhardt sure loves her smokey eye makeup.
I think he was also in Flyboys (2006) but his only scene got deleted. Him being “mauled” by the squadron’s lion mascot.
I’ve sadly only seen him in The Patriot. I was not aware he had passed.