<p>French actor and director Robert Hossein, famous for his mega-productions of classics such as Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, died Thursday at the age of 93, his wife Candice Patou told AFP.</p>.<p>Hossein died in hospital after suffering a "respiratory problem", Patou said.</p>.<p>Born in December 30, 1927 to an Iranian Zoroastrian composer father and a Russian Orthodox mother Hossein began acting in his teens.</p>.<p>He made his name in the 1960s as the smouldering count of Peyrac in the "Angelique" series of baroque romances.</p>.<p>But he was also regularly cast by arthouse directors, including Roger Vadim, who picked him to play the suicidal love interest of Brigitte Bardot in Love on a Pillow in 1962.</p>.<p>In later years he threw his energy into huge stage productions aimed at luring the general public into theatres.</p>.<p>"Theatre like you've never seen in the cinema," was how he billed his lavish shows, which included an epic production of the gladiator tale Ben-Hur at the Stade de France stadium.</p>.<p>"He was the prince of theatre for the masses," the former president of the Cannes film festival, Gilles Jacob, wrote on Twitter.</p>
<p>French actor and director Robert Hossein, famous for his mega-productions of classics such as Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, died Thursday at the age of 93, his wife Candice Patou told AFP.</p>.<p>Hossein died in hospital after suffering a "respiratory problem", Patou said.</p>.<p>Born in December 30, 1927 to an Iranian Zoroastrian composer father and a Russian Orthodox mother Hossein began acting in his teens.</p>.<p>He made his name in the 1960s as the smouldering count of Peyrac in the "Angelique" series of baroque romances.</p>.<p>But he was also regularly cast by arthouse directors, including Roger Vadim, who picked him to play the suicidal love interest of Brigitte Bardot in Love on a Pillow in 1962.</p>.<p>In later years he threw his energy into huge stage productions aimed at luring the general public into theatres.</p>.<p>"Theatre like you've never seen in the cinema," was how he billed his lavish shows, which included an epic production of the gladiator tale Ben-Hur at the Stade de France stadium.</p>.<p>"He was the prince of theatre for the masses," the former president of the Cannes film festival, Gilles Jacob, wrote on Twitter.</p>