Actor Claude Laydu dies at 84

The un named priest is wracked by self-doubt in addition to a physical condition that's eventually identified as stomach cancer, and that he dies after achieving an inexplicable condition of sophistication. French actor Claude Laydu, who starred within the title role of Robert Bresson's classic film "Diary of the Country Priest," died on This summer 29 of heart problems in Paris. He was 84. Laydu made his screen debut in Bresson's 1951 film, an adaptation of Georges Bernanos' 1937 novel in regards to a sickly but ascetic youthful cleric at his first parish in a tiny provincial town that proves hostile to his serious morality. Born in The city, Laydu would be a youthful actor at Theatre Marigny in Paris (along with a practicing Catholic) when Bresson chose him for that role, that he dropped a few pounds to offer the necessary gaunt appearance. Laydu made an appearance in greater than a dozen films throughout the nineteen fifties. His second film was the 1951 light comedy "Le Voyage en Amerique," starring Pierre Fresnais, but his role in "Diary of the Country Priest" affected the tenor of his career. A minimum of two times he made an appearance again like a priest, in Rafael Gil's significantly acclaimed 1953 film "I Had Been a Parish Priest," by which Laydu starred, and 1954's "Rasputin," and that he performed Saint Etienne within the religious epic "The Street to Damascus" described the brother of the nun in "L'ensemble des dialogues des Carmelites" and wrestled with large moral questions in "Au coeur p la casbah" and "Nous sommes tous des assassins," concerning the dying penalty. He performed the composer Franz Schubert in 1956's "Sinfonia d'amore" and made an appearance opposite his wife, Christine Balli, in "Italienisches capriccio" (1961). Laydu and Balli created the children's puppet show "Bonne nuit l'ensemble des petits," which went on French TV in excess of ten years from 1962 -- the concept ended up being to help get kids to rest -- and came back within the the nineteen nineties. Laydu's children include his wife, a boy along with a daughter. Contact Variety Staff at news@variety.com