Editing Louis de Funès (section)

==Early life==
Louis de Funès was born on 31 July 1914 in [[Courbevoie]], a Parisian suburb, to parents who hailed from [[Seville]], Spain. Since the couple's families opposed their marriage, they eloped to France in 1904. His father, Carlos Luis de Funès de Galarza, was a nobleman whose mother descended from the Counts de Galarza (of Basque origin).<ref name="bio">Stars-celebrites.com — [http://www.stars-celebrites.com/DE-FUNES-LOUIS/imprimible-defunes.htm Biografía de Louis de Funès.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201023172518/http://www.stars-celebrites.com/DE-FUNES-LOUIS/imprimible-defunes.htm |date=23 October 2020 }}. Retrieved April 2008.</ref> His father's family was from [[Funes, Navarra|Funes]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Orteganos Ilustres|last=Suárez Sandomingo|first=José Manuel|publisher=Axac|year=2015}}</ref> He had been a lawyer in Spain, but became a diamond cutter upon arriving in France. His mother, Leonor Soto Reguera, was Galician, daughter to Galician lawyer Teolindo Soto Barro, of Portuguese descent.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-12-16 |title=Louis de Funes - biographie du grand comédien |url=https://promdevelop.com/fr/personality/louis-de-funes/ |access-date=2023-07-25 |website=Promdevelop |language=fr-FR}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=SUR UN ARBRE PERCHE-VF - DVD - tous les DVD à la Fnac |url=https://www.fr.fnac.be/a8572099/SUR-UN-ARBRE-PERCHE-VF-DVD |access-date=2023-07-25 |website=www.fr.fnac.be}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=DS voador e 2CV desfeito em exposição de homenagem ao "Gendarme" |url=https://away.iol.pt/filme/gendarme/ds-voador-e-2cv-desfeito-em-exposicao-de-homenagem-ao-gendarme/20230425/643590240cf2c84d7fd0e399 |access-date=2023-07-25 |website=AWAY magazine |language=pt}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-08-23 |title=Le Cellier. Le souvenir de «P'tit Louis» |url=https://www.letelegramme.fr/toute-l-information-de-la-bretagne/spanle-cellierspan-le-souvenir-de-ptit-louis-1925720.php |access-date=2023-07-25 |website=Le Télégramme |language=fr-FR}}</ref>

Known to friends and intimates as "'''Fufu'''", De Funès spoke French, Spanish, and English. During his youth, he was fond of drawing and playing the piano. He was an alumnus of the [[Lycée Condorcet]] in Paris. He later dropped out, and his early life was rather inconspicuous; as a youth and young adult, De Funès held menial jobs, from which he was repeatedly fired. He became a bar [[pianist]], working mostly as a jazz pianist in [[Quartier Pigalle|Pigalle]], [[Paris]], where he made his customers laugh each time he grimaced. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school, where he made some useful contacts, including [[Daniel Gélin]], among others. In 1936, he married Germaine Louise Élodie Carroyer, with whom he had one child: a son named Daniel; the couple divorced in late 1942. Through the early 1940s, De Funès continued playing piano in clubs, thinking there was not much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gélin encouraged him until he managed to overcome his fear of rejection. His wife supported him in the most difficult moments and helped him to manage his career efficiently.

[[File:DeFunes-1943.png|thumb|left|De Funès at the piano in 1943]]
During the [[Paris in World War II|occupation of Paris]] in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, Jeanne Barthelémy de Maupassant. She had fallen in love with "the young man who played jazz like God"; they married in 1943 and remained together for forty years until his death in 1983. They had two sons: Patrick (born on 27 January 1944), who became a doctor, and [[Olivier de Funès|Olivier]] (born on 11 August 1949), who became a pilot for Air France Europe and also followed in his father's footsteps by becoming an actor. Olivier de Funès became known for the roles he played in some of his father's films (''[[Les grandes vacances (film)|Les Grandes Vacances]]'', ''[[Fantômas se déchaîne]]'', ''[[Le Grand Restaurant]]'' and ''[[Hibernatus]]'' being the most famous).