At the 2007 gala for the Gémeaux awards, the French-language equivalent of the Geminis, Gilles Latulippe was given a special award for his exceptional contribution to French television in Canada.The Canadian Press
At his pinnacle, Gilles Latulippe was as big in French-speaking Quebec as Bob Hope was in the English-speaking world, and he drew belly laughs from the masses with a similar gentle, populist humour.
Mr. Latulippe, the beloved comedic actor who was among the last of the great cabaret comedy performers, died Tuesday morning of lung cancer. He was 77.
Mr. Latulippe rose to stardom in the 1960s writing and performing sketch comedy on television and in the theatre. His comedy held a mirror up to the common folk, good-naturedly pointing out their foibles, and featured classic characters, such as domineering mothers-in-law and hapless husbands – and plenty of pratfalls.
He created and starred in thousands of hours of Quebec television programming and became a prominent figure in the province's homegrown entertainment industry. At 27, he founded a theatre, funded it out of his own pocket and ran it for 33 years. It provided a platform for his own vaudevillian comedy and gave many other entertainers their start. (The 100-year-old theatre, which he sold in 2000, is now called La Tulipe and remains a hopping Montreal venue.)
In July, the Just for Laughs festival held a tribute night to Mr. Latulippe to celebrate his 55 years on stage as one of Quebec's great stars. Friends and colleagues describe him as the kind of legend who was embarrassed by such laurels.
"He was a humble person. When we did the homage to him, he was very uneasy. It was the kind of personality he was. His only goal in life was to make people laugh, not to get praise for his work," said Réal Béland, a 43-year-old comedian who grew up watching Mr. Latulippe. His father, Réal Béland Sr., was a frequent collaborator with Mr. Latulippe. "He was Red Skelton, Bob Hope and Jim Carey rolled into one. But he was also a businessman who sold his own tickets, a mentor who brought talent along."
The son of a hardware store owner, Mr. Latulippe was born in Montreal Aug. 31, 1937, and raised in a poor east-end neighbourhood. He worked as a messenger at Radio-Canada when a young colleague named Yvon Deschamps, who also went on to become a luminary of Quebec comedy, talked him into taking acting lessons.
Mr. Latulippe liked to say he was actually born April 1, 1959 – the first time he walked on stage at the prestigious Théâtre de la Comédie-Canadienne, which later became the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde.
Mr. Latulippe specialized in the pie-in-the-face humour and unsubtle word play often scorned by critics. "Nobody was spared the cream pie!" said Pierre Marcotte, a television and radio host who worked with Mr. Latulippe. But the shtick put Mr. Latulippe firmly in the hearts of French-speaking audiences. "The only valid critics are the people in the theatre," Mr. Latulippe said in a 1977 interview. "As long as people need to laugh, I'll feel the need to make them laugh."
His popularity spanned generations. Baby boomers grew up watching him on stage (he toured the province constantly) and on TV in black and white, as a slapstick performer. The variety show Les démons du midi, which he co-hosted with comedienne Suzanne Lapointe, was a noon-hour ritual shared by grandparents and their grandchildren in the 1980s and early 90s.
"He was an immense comedic genius, and a good man," said Jean Lapointe, an actor and former senator who was a contemporary of Mr. Latulippe.
Mr. Latulippe started to fade from the limelight in the past decade, but he was still active. From 1995 until he was admitted to hospital in August, he staged an annual summer theatre show in Drummondville, Que. He toured Quebec and Ontario for the last time in 2012.
Mr. Latulippe was diagnosed with lung cancer two years ago. His condition worsened at the end of August when he was admitted for pneumonia. He leaves his spouse, Suzanne Gagnon, and son, Olivier Latulippe. Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, who grew up watching Mr. Latulippe, announced the city's flags would be lowered to half-mast and that the actor would lie in state at City Hall.
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