- In his last completed film, Paradis pour tous (1982), his character suffers from depression and commits suicide. The film was released 5 weeks after his death.
- In the late 60s he joined an experimental acting troupe called the 'Café de la Gare' -- a company that included future French star Miou-Miou, whom he subsequently co-starred with in movies.
- Daughter Angèle Herry-Leclerc, with actress Miou-Miou, born in 1974.
- Second daughter, Lola Dewaere, with second wife Elsa Chalier was born in 1979.
- A strange, scruffy, highly-depressed individual, he was best known for his light comedic work, but was actually more drawn to playing losers, misfits, rather luckless, sometimes tortured characters on film.
- Brother of Jean-Pierre Maurin.
- Son of Mado Maurin.
- Dewaere attended the Cours Hattemer, a private school.
- He appeared in a video for the song "Nuits d'Espagne" by Dalida.
- Patrick Dewaere was the third child of an actors family. Under the direction of his mother, Mado Maurin, Patrick, his four brothers and his sister played in movies and television series.
- In 1995, a care unit for suicidal young adults took his name at Lierneux (Belgium).
- The 1978 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film was awarded to Bertrand Blier's Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, due in part to the performance of its stars, Dewaere and Depardieu.
- In 2008, the Patrick-Dewaere Prize, intended to reward the promising actors of French cinema, was created to replace the Jean-Gabin Prize that had existed since 1980.
- The actor was the subject of the French documentary Patrick Dewaere, which was shown at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.
- On July 16, 1982, Dewaere shot himself in his house in Paris. He also had financial and addiction problems. At the time, he was preparing for the film Édith et Marcel by Claude Lelouch, where he should have played the boxer Marcel Cerdan. After Dewaere's death, his son, Marcel Cerdan Jr, joined Évelyne Bouix, who played Edith Piaf.
- From 1968, he collaborated with the Café de la Gare, where he met Miou-Miou and Gérard Depardieu, with whom he made a breakthrough after many secondary roles in various films, in the scandalous comedy Going Places. Miou-Miou became Dewaere's companion and the mother of his daughter Angèle (1974). She left Dewaere for singer Julien Clerc, shortly before the shooting of F...like Fairbanks, in which both play a couple in separation.
- In 1968, he took the name of "Dewaere" which his maternal great-grandmother inspired him.
- In his work, Dewaere was restless and very conscientious, which may have caused his depressed mood. He also had serious drug problems, and it is known that he had been sexually abused as a child.
- In 1975, Dewaere received the Crystal Star of the Best Actor for The Best Way to Walk, shared with Patrick Bouchitey. This "half trophy" was the only award the profession gave him.
- He consolidated his status as a savage and ruthless actor in Alain Corneau's cult film Série noire (1979). In his roles, Dewaere was long attached to the kind of young rebel. Only in his later films did his comic and dramatic diversity manifest itself.
- At the age of 17, Dewaere learned that he was not the biological child of his mother's ex-husband, Pierre-Marie Bourdeaux, but that of conductor and singer Michel Têtard.
- In 1967 he had met his first wife, Sotha, an actress who co-founded the Café de la Gare, an experimental theatre. They separated in 1970 but remained married for eleven years.
- In Michel Gondry's film La Science des rêves (2006), the hero played by Gael García Bernal metamorphoses into Patrick Dewaere during a scene and replays several major scenes from the film Série noire. The title of the original soundtrack accompanying this sequence is Rêve Patrick Dewaere.
- In 1980, Dewaere hit a journalist who had announced against his will his union with Elsa Chalier. Subsequently, the actor was ignored by the French press, his name was even abbreviated with his initials (P.D).
- Between 1977 and 1982, he was nominated five times to the Césars in the "Best Actor" category, the most important award in France.
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