His determination to get to a Northern university one year in the middle of a February
His determination to get to a Northern university one year, in the middle of a February freeze-up which stopped all public transport, to contribute to an Institut de Gaulle Colloquium, was way beyond the call of duty.Charlot's last book Pourquoi Jacques Chirac? (1995), dissecting the 1995 presidential race, showed him at his best. In this he combined insider access and sympathy for the new president with over 30 years of work on the Gaullist movement and his pleasure at seeing a Gaullist once again in the Elysee was understandable. His discussions (in very good English) of the last two presidential campaigns will be remembered by contemporary students and academics. He was a devoted family man and he was a frequent visitor to England (his wife Monica ran the Maison Francaise in Oxford in the 1980s).Jean Charlot, political scientist: born Guingamp, Cotes-du-Nord 16 March 1932; Professor, Paris Institut d'Etudes Politiques 1978-97; married 1956 Monica Huber (three daughters); died 6 March 1997.. Resplendent in Beaujolais-hued tweed jacket, purple-pink shirt, chinos and a pair of head-turning shoes with black leather uppers and thick white rubber soles, Richard Wilson is putting the girls in the local coffee shop at their ease.
"D'you do nice coffee in here?" he enquires in his unmistakable stentorian Scots. The girls stand rooted to their tills, eyes flickering in silent dialogue: It's him, the one who plays the crabby old git, what's his name, One Foot in the Grave, and he's asking me a question, Oh God, what do I say, I don't know my lines... "Cap-puc- cheen-o?" asks Wilson, his voice fastidiously sorting the syllables into neat piles. The girls look mortified, as if they know that any response will somehow be wrong, will lead to their being withered by scorn, incinerated by Victor Meldrew distaste. "Oh, we'll try next door," says Wilson unforgivingly, breaking the nervy silence, and we stride out, as if concluding a visit from the Gestapo. You feel for the girls, but you've got to sympathise with Richard Wilson as well. Despite being perhaps the most famous actor in the UK, having played Victor the irascible scourge of modern life since 1991, he has never quite managed to ironise the correspondences the world feels between himself and his alter ego.
So many tabloid stories, so many people calling him Victor when asking for his autograph or shouting "I don't beleeeve it!"at him in the street, has left him with a short fuse about the Richard / Victor interface. How can people be so stupid as to mistake impersonation for self-expression? How can they confuse him with a 65-year-old early-retired curmudgeon when he is in fact a 61-year-old actor-director of equilibrial temper and a love of hard work? He just hasn't managed to find a benignly smiling public persona, a Yes-it's-me-but-I'm-not-like- him face that would explain it all in a second. Hence the squirming of the coffee-shop girls. And he keeps on doing it. "I was in the Post Office the other day, buying stamps and I bought a Lottery card. This woman came up and said, [adopts horrible elderly screech] 'What d'you want a Lottery card for? You don't need a Lottery card.' I said to her, 'Yes I do, I'm going to buy my own film company if I win.' And she said, [screech reprise] 'Oh - can I have a part in it?' I said, 'No you bloody well can't, talking to me like that...' "He make himself sound rather mean and hostile when it is clear that he is neither He is warm and funny company He laughs easily He talks with reckless frankness about his views Just don't even think of asking him about his private life.
