Coluche, French Comic, Dies in Motorcycle Crash

PARIS —  Coluche, one of France’s best-known comedians, died Thursday in a motorcycle accident at Opio, near Grasse in southern France, his agent said. He was 41.

Coluche was a comedian, an actor, a humanitarian who launched a series of “restaurants of the heart” to help feed poor people in the winter and a presidential candidate in 1981.

“Coluche was driving a motorcycle near Opio when a truck cut his route,” said the agent, Paul Lederman. “The shock was very violent, and Coluche died on the spot.”

Son of Italian Immigrants

The comedian, son of Italian immigrants whose real name was Michel Colucci, last year tried unsuccessfully to break a world motorcycling speed record on an Italian track.

Police said Coluche was riding alone on the motorcycle, preceded by two friends on another, when the collision occurred on a road between Chateauneuf-de-Grasse and Valbonne. He had been on vacation and had rented a house near Mougins.

President Francois Mitterrand, informed of the death after ceremonies honoring American composer Leonard Bernstein, said: “It is heart-wrenching. I knew him well. He was a lover of life, and he has just lost it.”

Coluche was known for his impertinent, frequently vulgar, humor that often shocked audiences as much as it amused them. His sharpest barbs were aimed at the authorities--any authorities.

Coluche and fellow comedian Thierry Le Luron staged a mock marriage last year to poke fun at an elaborate wedding planned for a popular television newscaster.

Coluche, wearing a traditional white bridal dress with a blond wig, and Le Luron, in morning coat and top hat, were taken by a horse-drawn carriage to a reception at a restaurant on the Champs Elysees to the amusement of nearly 1,000 spectators.

The pair said they did it because they could not bear to see the magazines and newspapers monopolized by Yves Mourousi, host of a midday news program.

Coluche gained international attention when he announced his candidacy in the 1981 presidential elections. When polls showed him getting up to 15% of the vote in the first round, politicians stopped laughing and started criticizing him for mocking the electoral process. He eventually withdrew.