by Hal Erickson
biography
The son of impressionist artist Auguste Renoir, actor Pierre Renoir was also the older brother of director Jean Renoir and the father of cinematographer Claude Renoir. He made his stage debut in the first decade of the 20th century and his first film in 1911. In 1932 he became the first actor to portray Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret in La Nuit de Carrefour. His subsequent screen assignments included Charles Bovary in Madame Bovary (1933) and Louis XVI in La Marseillaise (1935), both directed by his brother Jean Renoir. During the war years he appeared in only a handful of films, most memorably as Jericho in Marcel Carne's Children of Paradise (1945). Pierre Renoir's final film was Dr. Knock, completed the year before his death.
