Jean-Paul Belmondo is a much loved French actor. His breakthrough role was in Jean-Luc Godard's Bout de Souffle (aka Breathless) (1960), which made him a major figure in the French New Wave. Until the mid-1980s, Belmondo's typical characters were either dashing adventurers or more cynical heroes. He suffered a stroke in 2001 and has since been absent from the stage and the screen.