François Truffaut on Boby Lapointe

This anecdote is from a memoir by François Truffaut of Boby Lapointe, the French pop singer who had appeared in Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, whose Provençal accent was so thick that they had to put subtitles in French for the audience in France. Truffaut admits in the article that he made up the name "Rosembach" for the sake of his story. It was published in Truffaut’s Le Plaisir des yeux and is my translation. The actual film in question is a spaghetti-western title Chapaqua.

Later Boby [Lapointe] became an actor. I saw him in Les Choses de la vie. Then i met him one night at Orly Airport. He was waiting for a plane for Rome where he was going to act in a film. His Provençal accent was still preserved, contrasted by the anxiety in his regard. I asked him about the film he was to play in. "I don't know -- it's called Rosembach."
"Do you have a good role? Are you happy?"
"I don't know. I don't understand anything in the contract. Take a look."
I looked his contract over and I saw that Boby Lapointe was engaged to take the role of . . . Rosembach. He had the title role and he did not know it.