'Contempt' Star Michel Piccoli Passes Away at 94

Michel Piccoli, French actor known for his leading roles in such films as Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt and Luis Buñuel's Belle de jour, has died. He was 94.

Piccoli's family shared the news Monday. Agence France-Presse and French newspaper Le Figaro reported the news as well.

Piccoli starred in 230-plus movies throughout a career that spanned eight decades, beginning in the late 1940s and lasting all the way until 2015. He also boasted a bountiful stage and television career, performing in dozens of plays and telefilms. 

He received best actor prizes in Cannes in 1980 for Marco Bellocchio's A Leap in the Dark and a Silver Bear in Berlin two years later for Pierre Granier-Deferre's Strange Affair. Although he was nominated four times for a Cesar award in France and twice for a Molière (his country's equivalent of the Tony) for playing the lead in King Lear, he never received either prize during his lifetime.

Piccoli's last major role was as a newly elected pope with major misgivings about his appointment in Nanni Moretti's Habemus Papam. The film premiered in competition in Cannes in 2011 and earned him a David di Donatello award for best actor in Italy.