Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo was a French actor, initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s and a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s. His best known credits include Breathless (1960), That Man from Rio (1964), and Pierrot le Fou (1965). He was most notable for portraying police officers in action thriller films and became known for his unwillingness to appear in English-language films, despite being heavily courted by Hollywood.