Michel Delahaye

Biography

Michel Delahaye was born in 1929 in Vertou close to Nantes, Bretagne, France. Raised by a very religious father who was an ex-pilot of the Great War (World War I). He attended a Jesuit private school in Saint Malo, during World War II, under the German invasion. In 1951, he did his military service in Germany. In 1953, after being judged guilty of petty theft, he met the owner of a docking company who gave him a chance as a manager of transports, in Nantes seaport. In 1956, he became a probationary in the postal services, then a factory worker. When he moved to Paris, he worked in news stands then in a book store, became a reporter for the "Radar" magazine, then worked at the prestigious "Detective" magazine. He became a movie critic, then assistant director. Thanks to Éric Rohmer he started working for the world renowned "Les Cahiers du Cinema" revue in November 1959 with all the new wave of French directors, later starts teaching cinema at La FEMIS( formerly called l'HIDEC). He had the privilege to work with 'Francois Truffaut', Jean-Luc Godard and interviewed Roman Polanski and Carl Theodor Dreyer, and many others. He was a close friend of Jean Renoir. He was fired from "les Cahiers..." in the late 1969 for being an anti-Marxiste. So he became a security officer, then a full time actor for theater, movies and television. In 1974 he wrote a novel "L'Archange et Robinson font du Bateau" destined to be a movie directed by Claude Miller and Gérard Depardieu as the lead role but the project never came to completion, so his script got published by the publishing house Champs Libre owned by Gerard Lebovici the founder of Artmedia agency. In late 1984, he became a social worker in a emergency team named 24/24, but quit in 1994. In 1998, he contributed to writing critics for "La Lettre du Cinema" and helped its young staff in screenwriting and acted in their movies. He has two sons: Emmanuel the oldest and Mathew Lorenceau the youngest (5 years apart).