Director

Gabriel Axel

Directing

Career Snapshot

Explained

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Directed credits

Established

Strong directing catalog.

TMDB popularity

1.5

Low visibility

TMDB internal trend index. Higher usually means more searches and page activity now.

Directed movies: 27Directed series: 1All crew credits: 29

TMDB ID: 70636

IMDb ID: nm0002196

Known for: Directing

Born: April 18, 1918

Died: February 9, 2014

Age: 95

Place of birth: Aarhus, Denmark

Gender: Male

Adult content flag: No

Career span: 1952 - 2011

Years active: 60

Average TMDB rating: 6.26

Wikidata: Q553819

Frequent jobs

Director (28)Writer (1)

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Biography

Axel Gabriel Erik Mørch, better known as Gabriel Axel was a Danish director, actor and writer. He spent most of his childhood and youth in Paris. In 1942 Axel was admitted to the acting school at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen. After a short period of theatre in Paris, he returned to Denmark and began in 1951 to direct television drama. Following a series of more or less erotic films and broadly popular comedies, Axel in 1977 launched a prolific career as a director of French TV films, culminating in 1985 with a historical five-episode series, "Les colonnes du ciel/Heaven's Pillars". In 1987, Axel returned to Denmark to direct what had been his dream project for over 15 years, an adaptation of Karen Blixen's "Babette's Feast." After screening at the Cannes film festival, the film became a worldwide success and won the 1988 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Gabriel Axel directed some 25 feature films and 50 tv-movies. He appeared in about 25 films.