Sacha Pitoëff was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 film actor and theater director.

Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Pitoëff played his first film role in 1952. Appearing in over 50 movies, he is probably best known for his performance in Alain Resnais

Alain Resnais

Alain Resnais is a French film director whose career has extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Nuit et Brouillard , an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.He began...

' enigmatic Last Year at Marienbad

Last Year at Marienbad

L'Année dernière à Marienbad is a 1961 French film directed by Alain Resnais from a screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet....

(1960), as a character known simply as "M". He was also featured in roles of various sizes in such films as René Clément's Is Paris Burning?

Is Paris Burning?

Is Paris Burning? is a 1966 film dealing with the 1944 liberation of Paris by rival branches of the French Resistance and the Free French Forces.-Plot:...

(1967), Anatole Litvak

Anatole Litvak

Anatole Litvak was a Ukrainian-born filmmaker who wrote, directed, and produced films in a various countries and languages...

's Night of the Generals (1967), and Jacques Demy

Jacques Demy

Jacques Demy was one of the most approachable filmmakers to appear in the wake of the French New Wave. Uninterested in the formal experimentation of Alain Resnais, or the political agitation of Jean-Luc Godard, Demy instead created a self-contained fantasy world closer to that of François...

's Donkey Skin

Peau d'Âne

Peau d'Âne is a 1970 French musical film directed by Jacques Demy. It is also known by the English titles Once Upon a Time and The Magic Donkey. The film was adapted by Demy from Donkeyskin, a fairy tale by Charles Perrault about a king who wishes to marry his daughter...

(1970). Toward the end of his career, he began appearing in horror films, including Dario Argento

Dario Argento

Dario Argento is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror film genre, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies....

's Inferno

Inferno (1980 film)

Inferno is a 1980 Italian supernatural horror film written and directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Irene Miracle, Leigh McCloskey, Eleonora Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi, and Alida Valli. The cinematography was by Romano Albani, and Keith Emerson composed the film's thunderous musical score...

(1980) and the low budget Patrick Still Lives (1980).

Selected filmography

• Le Capitaine Fracasse
  Le Capitaine Fracasse
  Le Capitaine Fracasse , is a French comedy film from 1961, directed by Pierre Gaspard-Huit, written by Pierre Gaspard-Huit and Pierre Gaspard-Huit, starring Jean Marais and Louis de Funès...
  
  (1961)
• Is Paris Burning?
  Is Paris Burning?
  Is Paris Burning? is a 1966 film dealing with the 1944 liberation of Paris by rival branches of the French Resistance and the Free French Forces.-Plot:...
  
  (1966)
• Inferno
  Inferno (1980 film)
  Inferno is a 1980 Italian supernatural horror film written and directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Irene Miracle, Leigh McCloskey, Eleonora Giorgi, Daria Nicolodi, and Alida Valli. The cinematography was by Romano Albani, and Keith Emerson composed the film's thunderous musical score...
  
  (1980)