Obituaries : Lino Ventura; Tough Guy of French Cinema

Lino Ventura, a former prizefighter who portrayed husky tough guys and rough detectives in dozens of French films, has died at the age of 68.

Ventura, best known for his role as the police investigator in the award-winning 1981 film “Garde a Vue,” died of a heart attack Thursday at his home in the Paris suburbs, officials said.

“Lino Ventura was certainly above all a great popular star of French cinema,” Premier Jacques Chirac said in a statement. “He was also generous and faithful in friendship, and devoted himself to important causes. His sudden death saddens me deeply.”

Ventura, often compared to the late Jean Gabin, was born Lino Borrini in Parma, Italy. He family moved to France when he was 8.

A European wrestling and boxing champion in his youth, Ventura played poker-faced thugs and tough guys in his early film roles in the 1950s. Later, he diversified and starred in comedies as well as dramas.

He films included “Crime et Chatiment” (Crime and Punishment) in 1956, “Modigliani of Montparnasse” in 1958, “The Threepenny Opera” (as Tiger Brown in a German production) in 1963, and “The Medusa Touch” (British) in 1979.

In private he often complained that France’s fascination with the ambiguous relationship between police and the underworld had stereotyped him and that only toward the end of his life was he given something more original than replaying Gabin, who died in 1976. But even then, when Ventura was cast as Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables” in 1952 he was repeating a prewar performance.

One of his four children was mentally retarded and he and his wife, Odette, established a foundation to raise money to help similar children.