Michel Audiard; Frenchman Churned Out 100 Scripts Over 40-Year Span

PARIS — Michel Audiard, an optician and racing cyclist who turned to screen writing in the 1940s and then wrote more than 100 scripts over the next 40 years, died Sunday at his suburban Paris home after a long illness. He was 65, and the cause of his death was not announced.

Although best known in his native France, Audiard’s films released in the United States included “Peekaboo” in 1951 and “Babette Goes to War” in 1960.

Audiard worked with some of France’s best-known directors--including Henri Decoin, Gilles Grangier and Philippe de Broca--and wrote 10 books, which sold poorly.

“I am drawn by a certain sort of snobbism to write the kind of films that everybody goes to see and the kind of books that nobody reads,” he once wrote.