Jean-Louis Xavier Trintignant (French pronunciation: ; born 11 December 1930) is a French actor, screenwriter and director who has enjoyed international acclaim. He won the Best Actor Award at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival as well as the Best Actor Award at the César Awards 2013.
Trintignant was born in Piolenc, Vaucluse, France, the son of Claire (née Tourtin) and Raoul Trintignant, an industrialist. At the age of twenty, Trintignant moved to Paris to study drama, and made his theatrical debut in 1951 going on to be seen as one of the most gifted French actors of the post-war era. After touring in the early 1950s in several theater productions, his first motion picture appearance came in 1955 and the following year he gained stardom with his performance opposite Brigitte Bardot in Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman.
Trintignant’s acting was interrupted for several years by mandatory military service. After serving in Algiers, he returned to Paris and resumed his work in film. He had the leading male role in the classic A Man and a Woman, which at the time was the most successful French film ever screened in the foreign market.