Jean-Roger Milo, whose real name is Salah Eldine Saoud (in Arabic: صلاح الدين سعود), is a French actor of Algerian origin, born June 5, 1957 in the 12th arrondissement of Paris and died October 12, 2023 in the 15th. district of the same city.
At the end of the 1970s, he was 18 years old and already quite drifting, in Créteil, at the MJC, he became acquainted with cinema. A 16 mm Beaulieu camera, black and white film galore, and it's an adventure. One day, he heard actor Sacha Pitoëff on the radio explaining that his course was open to everyone. He calls her and arrives at the Campagne Première theater. “I probably needed another identity. For me, Pitoëff was a teacher, but also a father. A man". Through his contact, the applicant confronts the great texts and plays Pepel in Les Bas-Fonds. He discovered a passion for the acting profession.
First jobs as extras. He does what he can with “his build”. He telephones Bertrand Tavernier: “We had a coffee together and we discussed cinema, that brought me a lot. I did the same thing with Bertrand Blier, who gave me books to read. The young actor searches for himself, launches into poetry, reads Pierre de Ronsard, Victor Hugo, Stéphane Mallarmé, Tristan Corbière, Max Jacob, and writes “I wrote sonnets, two quatrains and two tercets. I took my time. No more than three in the year. I also wrote short stories in prose. In my opinion."
In the early 1980s, Jean-Roger Milo appeared in films such as Tir Groupé and Un Dimanche De Flic. In L'As Des As, he is part of the sports team alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo. Confined to the employment of the villain, the experience is painful. “Playing is always an act against one’s nature. Even those whose faces give off a hint of madness sometimes dream of a fireside role.” Cast in the film Rue Barbare, in 1984, he was injured in a fight while protecting a child before the start of filming and had to be replaced: this incident wrongly earned him a bad reputation in cinema circles and slowed down his career. .
Jean-Roger Milo then reappears in the cinema in roles of varying importance. In Sarraounia, in 1986, he played Paul Voulet. He played colorful roles in L.627 (1992) by Bertrand Tavernier, and in 1993 he lost thirty kilos to play Chaval in Germinal by Claude Berri. His performance earned him a César nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He toured again under the direction of Berri, in 1997, in Lucie Aubrac, where he played Maurice David, a character closer to him. He will also play in popular films like Le Pari (1997) by Didier Bourdon and Bernard Campan and Astérix et Obélix contre César (1999) by Claude Zidi where he will lend his features to the blacksmith Cétautomatix. In 1999, he played one of the main roles in the television films Prison à Domicile and Les Sagards (1999) by Dominique Ladoge.
Jean-Roger Milo then retired from cinema to live in the mountains. Gustave Kervern and Benoît Delépine tried to get him back on the screens in 2014 by giving him the main role in the film Near Death Experience but their contacts were unsuccessful.
Jean-Roger Milo died on October 12, 2023 in Paris 15th, at the age of 66.
