Jacques Sernas

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Jacques Sernas ( Lithuanian Jokūbas Šernas ; born July 30, 1925 in Kaunas , Lithuania , † July 3, 2015 in Rome ) was a French film actor and screenwriter .

Life

Jacques Sernas belonged to a prominent Lithuanian family. His father, the lawyer Jokūbas Šernas , was one of the signatories of the Lithuanian declaration of independence in 1918. Sernas senior died in 1926 when Jacques was only one year old. His Russian mother then moved with the boy to Paris , where he spent his childhood and youth and attended school. Sernas therefore had dual citizenship of Lithuania and France. As a young man, Sernas joined the Resistance to fight against the Nazi occupation of his home country . However, Sernas was out of luck and was arrested by the Nazis. He was then interned for over a year in the Buchenwald concentration camp , where he had to do hard forced labor.

After the war, Sernas began studying medicine, but quickly dropped out. In order to be able to keep his mother and himself afloat financially, he got by with odd jobs, including as a night watchman, waiter in the Café de la Paix and a ski instructor in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc . He also tried briefly as a journalist - among other things, he was a correspondent for the Nuremberg Trials - but also gave up this career aspiration.

In 1947 he first appeared in front of the camera in the Italian film drama Gioventù perduta , thus laying the foundation for a career that spanned over 60 years. Sernas, who first appeared in Italian and French films, also gained a reputation from Hollywood from the mid-1950s . In 1956 he stood in front of the camera as Prince Paris in the historical film Die Schöne Helena . In his few American films he appeared under the pseudonym Jack Sernas . At the beginning of the 1960s, Sernas settled in Rome , where he has since appeared in predominantly Italian productions. In 1966 he wrote his only screenplay, Zarabanda Bing Bing , a parody of the James Bond series of films in which Sernas also played the lead role.

Little is known about Jacques Sernas' personal life. In June 1955 he married the Romanian journalist Maria Stella Signorini. The following year he fathered a daughter.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1948: The mill on the Po (Il mulino de Po)
  • 1948: The slaves of vice (Una lettera dell'alba)
  • 1948: Lost Youth (Giovantù perduta)
  • 1949: The Wolf of the Sila Mountains (Il lupo della Sila)
  • 1950: The Golden Salamander (The Golden Salamander)
  • 1951: Anita Garibaldi (Camicie rossi)
  • 1951: Bluebeard
  • 1952: Angel from the basement apartment (Gli angeli del quartiere)
  • 1952: Girls without morals (Faniuclle di lusse)
  • 1954: Magdalena - Diary of a Lost Woman (Maddalena)
  • 1955: The Hell of Dien Bien Phu (Jump into Hell)
  • 1955: One Hundred Years of Love (Cento anni d'amore)
  • 1956: The beautiful Helena (Helen of Troy)
  • 1957: Helena, the courtesan of Athens (La Venere di Chironea)
  • 1958: The first night (La prima notte)
  • 1958: Under the sign of Rome (Nel segno di Roma)
  • 1958: The nights of love of Lucrezia Borgia (Le notti di Lucrezia Borgia)
  • 1958: And the executioner in the neck (Vite perdute)
  • 1959: uprising of the legions (Salambò)
  • 1959: Theater dreams (Il mondo dei miracoli)
  • 1960: Queen of the Barbarians (La regina dei tartari)
  • 1961: The Conqueror of Corinth (Il conquistatore di Corintho)
  • 1961: Maciste 's greatest adventure (Maciste contro il vampiro)
  • 1961: Romulus and Remus (Romolo e Remo)
  • 1962: The son of Spartacus (Il figlio di Spartaco)
  • 1963: 55 Days at Beijing
  • 1963: Operation Baalbek (Un aereo di Baalbek)
  • 1965: Operation Gold (Balaeri operazioni oro)
  • 1965: Spies among themselves (The Dirty Game)
  • 1966: Tampeko - A dollar has two sides (Per pochi dollari ancora)
  • 1970: The Wasp 's Nest (Hornets' Nest)
  • 1973: Superfly TNT (Superfly TNT)
  • 1981: The skin (La pelle)
  • 1990: The Return (L'africana)
  • 2000: The Little Lord - Savior in Need (Il ritorno del piccolo lord) (TV movie)
  • 2002: A Life for Peace - Pope John XXIII. (Papa Giovanni - Ioannes XXIII)
  • 2006: Papa Luciani - Il sorriso di Dio

literature

  • Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 315.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jacques Sernas, la vita (e la morte) come un film
personal data
SURNAME Sernas, Jacques
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sernas, Jack; Šernas, Jurgis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French actor and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Kaunas , Lithuania
DATE OF DEATH 3rd July 2015
Place of death Rome , Italy