Jean Renoir Biography

Fast Facts

• Served in a Dragoon regiment of the French military during World War I as a cavalry officer and pilot
• Won three Venice Film Festival Awards, one for "The Grand Illusion" in 1937, one for "The Southerner" in 1946, and one for "The River" in 1951
• Won a National Board of Review Award for Best Director for "The Southerner" in 1945
• Was the son of the master impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Started out as a writer, producer, and co-director of the film "Backbiters" in 1924, and also appeared in the film
• Worked as a ceramic artist before becoming interested in the film industry
• Quote: "(On his struggle to make movies in America): "Hollywood is an immense machine, an admirable mechanism without a soul․""
• Best known as the writer and director of "The Grand Illusion" and "The Rules of the Game․"
• In addition to his memoirs, novels, plays, and short stories, he also wrote a biography of his father in 1962 called "Renoir, My Father․"