Amidou

Hamidou Benmessaoud, known professionally as Amidou, was a Moroccan-French actor who worked in film, television, and theater. Born in Rabat, he moved to Paris at 17 to attend the CNSAD and made his stage debut in 1968 in Jean Genet's Les paravents. He was closely associated with Claude Lelouch, appearing in eleven of the director's films, among them Lelouch's debut Le propre de l'homme (1960). In 1969 he starred in the Moroccan film Soleil de printemps, and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival named him best actor for Life Love Death. His later credits included Spaghetti Westerns such as Buddy Goes West and American productions including William Friedkin's Sorcerer (1977), John Frankenheimer's Ronin (1998), and John Huston's Escape to Victory. He also won best actor awards at the Cairo and Tangier film festivals and received a Lifetime Career Award at Marrakech in 2005.