Jean Delannoy began his film career in the 1920s as an actor. By the 1930s he had switched careers and become an editor, then a short-subjects director. By the mid-'30s he was a full-fledged director, and soon garnered a reputation as a sensitive, understated craftsman with a thorough command of the medium. By the 1950s, however, he was doing overheated melodramas and overblown epics, including a particularly undistinguished version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (巴黎圣母院 (1956)), and he was soon reduced to churning out such drivel as 太阳打手 (1967) (US title: "Action Man") and The Double Bed (1965) (US title: "The Double Bed").
Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume One, 1890-1945". Pages 199-203. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973
Celebrated his 100th birthday on January 12, 2008, in his home city of Bueil in Normandy, surrounded by his friends, among them famous actress 米歇尔·摩根. The ceremony took place in the small City Hall, which is named after him ("Salle des Fêtes Polyvalente Jean Delannoy"). He is the oldest French film director still alive as of January 2008.
President of the Société des Auteurs de Films as of 1952.