Antoine de Caunes

Antoine de Caunes (born 1 December 1953) is a French television presenter, comedian, actor, journalist, writer and film director. He is the son of two prominent French personalities, television journalist-reporter Georges de Caunes and television announcer Jacqueline Joubert. He is the father of the actress Emma de Caunes.

He began his career writing theme songs for cartoons for Antenne 2 under the pseudonym of Paul Persavon, including Cobra and Space Sheriff Gavan (known in France as X-Or).

His early TV appearances included Chorus (1975), the series Les Enfants du rock, again for A2, and then his breakthrough with Nulle part ailleurs for Canal+.

In 1988, De Caunes started making an English-language version of his French music programme Rapido, for Janet Street-Porter's youth and entertainment programming strand DEF II, with new episodes of Rapido usually being broadcast as part of DEF II's Wednesday night schedule on BBC2. He then went on to create the long-running magazine programme Eurotrash for Channel 4, with this humorous post-pub entertainment show co-presented by Jean Paul Gaultier for the few series and featuring regular spots for European stars like Lolo Ferrari. He also presented a short-lived chat show on Channel 4 called Le Show. In addition, he appeared in an advertising campaign for Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles ice lollies.

From 2013 until 2015, he hosted the daily evening show Le Grand Journal on Canal+.

He provided voices in the Aardman Animation TV show Rex the Runt.

De Caunes launched a new magazine Vieux, about issues faced by the elderly, in May 2024.

He is a long-time AIDS awareness campaigner, fronting the organisation Solidarité sida (AIDS Solidarity).

Source: Article "Antoine de Caunes" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.