Jean-Pierre Melville, born Jean-Pierre Grumbach (October 20, 1917 – August 2, 1973), was a French filmmaker. While with the French Resistance during World War II, he adopted the nom de guerre Melville as a tribute to his favorite American author, Herman Melville. He kept it as his stage name once the war was over.
Jean-Pierre Grumbach was born in Paris, France, to an ethnic Jewish Alsatian family.
After the fall of France in 1940 during World War II, Grumbach entered the French Resistance to oppose the German Nazis who occupied the country. He adopted the nom de guerre Melville, after the American author Herman Melville, a favorite of his. Melville fought in Operation Dragoon.
When he returned from the war, he applied for a license to become an assistant director, but was refused. Without this support, he decided to direct his films by his own means, and continued to use Melville as his stage name. He became an independent film-maker and owned his own studio.
He became well known for his tragic, minimalist film noir crime dramas, such as Le Doulos (1962), Le Samouraï (1967) and Le Cercle rouge (1969), starring major actors such as Alain Delon (probably the definitive 'Melvillian'
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