Eric Adjani, brother of the actress Isabelle Adjani, was camera assistant in 1977 on Le Camion, by Marguerite Duras, then took small parts, notably for Joseph Losey. He later turned to photography and made portraits of artists, including Serge Gainsbourg. He kept his career deliberately out of the limelight. Four words are engraved beneath his dates: “With our infinite love”.
The story
Eric Hakim Adjani was the son of Mohammed Chérif Adjani (1923-1983) and Emma Augusta Schweinberger (1919-2007), and the brother of the actress Isabelle Adjani.
In 1977 he was camera assistant to Marguerite Duras on “Le Camion”. Small parts followed, in Joseph Losey's “Don Giovanni” in 1979 and in “N'oublie pas ton père au vestiaire” in 1982.
He turned then to photography and made portraits of artists — his sister, Serge Gainsbourg. His career stayed deliberately out of the light, which the entries devoted to his family show little of.
He died in Paris on 26 December 2010, at fifty-three, and was buried in Division 8, one of the old divisions at the foot of the cemetery, where Xavier Bichat and Georges Cuvier lie, and where Marie-Joseph Chénier's tomb carries a cenotaph for his brother André, whose body stayed in the common pit at Picpus.
His grave is one of those that remind you Père-Lachaise is not only a pantheon of the famous: it takes in, along the same alleys, ordinary families and lives quieter than the guidebooks list.
On site, do not miss
A contemporary stone without ornament, on which four words are engraved beneath the dates: “With our infinite love”.
Visitors' questions
Where is Eric Adjani's grave?
In Division 8, Chemin Chénier, first row, in the lower, older part of Père-Lachaise, about ten minutes from the Boulevard de Ménilmontant entrance. It is a contemporary stone set among graves from the early nineteenth century.
Virginie DéjazetWho was Eric Adjani?
A man of cinema who turned to photography: camera assistant to Marguerite Duras in 1977, a handful of acting roles in the early 1980s, and then portraits of artists. Isabelle Adjani's brother, he died in 2010 at fifty-three.
Laurent FignonWhich notable figures rest in Division 8?
This older division holds the anatomist Xavier Bichat, the naturalist Georges Cuvier, the poet André Chénier and the “phantasmagoria” showman Étienne-Gaspard Robertson — four figures from the turn of the nineteenth century, a few paths from Eric Adjani's grave.
Alice OzyIs Division 8 easy to visit?
Yes. Division 8 lies in the lower part of the cemetery, about ten minutes from the main Boulevard de Ménilmontant entrance, along paved, gently sloping paths — one of the most accessible areas of Père-Lachaise.
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