French New Wave icon Jean-Paul Belmondo has died just weeks after celebrating his 88th birthday with family. Nicknamed Bébel by French audiences, the film star hailed from the suburbs of Paris, and tried to make a name for himself as a boxer before he was accepted to the National Academy of Dramatic Arts. He went on to star in some of the most classic films of the New Wave—including Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou and Breathless—quickly rising to fame as one of the country’s biggest actors in the 1960s and 70s. He even opened his own production company, Cerito Films. He was awarded a Cesar, the French version of an Oscar, for his role in Itineraire d’un Enfant Gate. In the 1990s, he starred in a modern adaptation of Les Misérables.
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