Greek-born jazz actor and drummer François Alexandre Galépidès, known as Moustache, was born in Paris on February 14, 1929. In 1948, he joined clarinettist and saxophonist Claude Luter's Les Lorientais orchestra and played in the clubs of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, before accompanying Sidney Bechet on several recordings. He made a name for himself on the silver screen with numerous roles, from Jules Dassin's Du rififi chez les hommes in 1954 to Jean Yanne's Deux heures moins le quart avant Jésus-Christ in 1982, including Le Grand bluff and Mademoiselle strip-tease, in which he played himself in 1957, Yves Robert's Ni vu ni connu (1958) and Zorro' s Sergent Garcia (1975). In the 1950s, he led his own jazz groups, such as Moustache Jazz Seven, the Dixieland Jazz Band and Moustache et ses Moustachus, before launching into parodies of the burgeoning rock'n'roll scene with the EP Moustache et le Rock'n 'Roll (1956), including "Le Rock de Paris". In 1967, with pianist Jean Constantin, he formed the humoristic group Les Gros Minets, which recorded a handful of singles for CBS, then in 1978 Les Petits Français, with Marcel Zanini, who accompanied Georges Brassens in jazz covers of his own repertoire and also recorded standards of the genre. Between TV and film roles, Moustache ran the club Le Bilboquet, then the Jazz Club Méridien de l'Étoile in the 1970s. In 1983, he recorded an album with his friends Henri Salvador, Lionel Hampton and Clark Terry. Three others followed, Boogie Woogie Piano (1984), Blues for Mama Mous (1985) and Roule Train Blues (1986), before his death in a car accident in Arpajon on March 25, 1987, at the age of 58.
