by Hal Erickson
biography
Born in Belgium, Fernand Ledoux inaugurated his distinguished stage career in France. He eventually appeared in over 800 plays and films, and for 22 years was one of the stars of the Comedie Francaise. In films from 1919, he didn't achieve screen stardom until 1938, when he played the brutish, cuckolded husband in Renoir's La Bete Humaine. He later made a handful of English-language cameo appearances in such films as Freud (1962) and The Longest Day (1962), and also essayed the major role of the Chief Clerk in Orson Welles' experimental The Trial. Fernand Ledoux was 85 when he last appeared onscreen; he ultimately lived to be 96.
