France on Friday mourned actor Michel Blanc, beloved by generations for bringing a comic quality to even his saddest characters including losers and hypochondriacs, reports Barron's.
Blanc died early Friday, aged 72, his family told AFP.
"He made us cry with laughter, and moved us to tears," President Emmanuel Macron said of Blanc, calling him "a monument of French cinema".
Blanc is most remembered for his breakthrough role in "French Fried Vacation" ("Les Bronzés"), a 1978 comedy about holidaymakers trying to escape their everyday problems and looking for romance at a holiday resort in Ivory Coast.
Blanc's character, Jean-Claude Dusse, is an awkward bachelor and bad harmonica player with an orange belt in karate who hopes to seduce women but can't pull it off.
"He was a fabulous actor who made us laugh," Prime Minister Michel Barnier said, adding that news of Blanc's death had made him "very emotional and very sad".
Blanc's trademark bald head and moustache appeared in several other comedies, but he also feared, after French Fried Vacation got two sequels, that he would be typecast as the lovable deadbeat forever.
"It was clear that the Jean-Claude Dusse role suited me," he told Paris Match magazine this year. But, he added, "I got scared very fast that it would stick to me my whole life."