'Maigret' star Bruno Cremer dies at 80: agent

AFP - French actor Bruno Cremer, best known for playing the role of Inspector Jules Maigret, died in a Paris hospital on Saturday at the age of 80, his agent France Degand told AFP on Sunday.

Cremer played Maigret, a pipe-smoking French police detective created by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon, in 54 episodes produced by French public television from 1991 to 2005.

In his autobiography "Un certain jeune homme" (A Certain Young Man), he said he was 12 years old when he decided to be an actor. "That exit door saved my life," he recalled. "Otherwise, I don't know what I would have done."

Cremer studied at the Paris Conservatory alongside the likes of Jean-Paul Belmondo, and appeared in many films and stage plays in a career that began in the 1950s. He had been living with cancer for several years.

He had two daughters with his wife Chantal, who he married in 1984, as well as a son from an earlier marriage.

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