Early life Patrick Dewaere was the third child of an actor's family. His biological father, Michel Têtard, was a lyricist who had an affair with Dewaere's mother, Mado Maurin, who was married to Pierre-Marie Bourdeaux. Dewaere grew up believing Bourdeaux was his biological father. After Dewaere's parents divorced, his mother remarried Georges Collignon, who sexually abused Dewaere as a child. Under the direction of his mother, Dewaere, his four brothers and his sister performed in movies and television series. The family lived in Paris. Dewaere attended the
Cours Hattemer, a private school. One of his first TV appearances was in 1961, when he was 14 years old. He appeared in a video for the song "
Nuits d'Espagne" by
Dalida.
Debuts as "Patrick Dewaere" At the age of 17, Dewaere learned that he was not the biological child of his mother’s ex-husband, Pierre-Marie Bourdeaux, but that of conductor and singer Michel Têtard. In 1968, he took the name of "Dewaere", inspired by his maternal great-grandmother. A year earlier, he had met his first wife,
Sotha, an actress who co-founded the
Café de la Gare, an experimental theatre. They separated in 1970 but remained married for eleven years. From 1968, he collaborated with the Café de la Gare, where he met
Miou-Miou and
Gérard Depardieu, with whom he made a breakthrough after many secondary roles in various films, in the scandalous comedy
Going Places. Miou-Miou became Dewaere’s companion.
Success and depression Patrick Dewaere became one of the most popular actors in French cinema in the 1970s. Between 1977 and 1982, he received five nominations for
César Award for Best Actor, the most important award in France. In his work, Dewaere was restless and very conscientious, which may have caused his depressed mood. He also had serious drug problems, and it is known that he had been sexually abused as a child. He consolidated his status as a savage and ruthless actor in
Alain Corneau’s cult film
Série noire (1979). In his roles, Dewaere was for a long while attached to the image of young rebel. Only in his later films did his comic and dramatic diversity manifest itself. He often worked with director
Bertrand Blier. In 1980, Dewaere hit a journalist who had announced against his will his relationship with Elsa Chalier. Subsequently, the actor was ignored by the French press; his name was even abbreviated with his initials (P.D). ==Personal life==