Michel Blanc came from a modest family background; being the only son of Marcel, a removals man and Jeanine Blanc, a typist.[2] His parents cosseted him when it was discovered shortly after birth that he had a heart murmur.[3] He attended the Lycée Pasteur in Neuilly-sur-Seine, where he met Gérard Jugnot[4] and the two became friends and later professional colleagues.[5] He also met Marie-Anne Chazel, Christian Clavier, Thierry Lhermitte and Josiane Balasko in those school years, the group later becoming the Le splendid troupe.[6]
Blanc's breakthrough role was in Les Bronzés, a 1978 comedy about French holidaymakers seeking romance at a resort in Cote d'Ivoire. Blanc’s character, Jean-Claude Dusse, an awkward bachelor who just cannot manage to seduce women. Blanc feared, after two Les Bronzés sequels, that he might become typecast as "a lovable deadbeat".[7] Blanc extended his range with serious film roles (such as in the films of André Téchiné), theatre work, screen-writing (from Les Bronzés to Un petit boulot in 2016) and film direction (Grosse Fatigue in 1994, Mauvaise Passe filmed in London in 1999, Embrassez qui vous voudrez in 2002 and Voyez comme on danse in 2018).[7] He declined to direct Une petite zone de turbulences in 2009 while nonetheless preparing the screenplay and starring.[8]
Blanc began his directing career with the comedy Marche à l'ombre, starring alongside Gérard Lanvin in 1984. The sharp dialogue and the contrast between the main duo assured the film a great success that year with over 6 million cinema entries.[9]
Blanc commented in 2010 "I’m very wary about forming habits when it comes to film-making, and art in general". In terms of his working methods as a writer, in adaptating a novel or text for a screen play he was wary of losing the original style, and he hated snipping scenes he liked. "So I always work the same way. I write. Then I leave it alone three weeks before reworking it. At that point, it’s no longer the book I’m adapting, but my script. For A Spot of Bother I wrote five different versions, then Alfred worked on my final version to make his shooting script."[8]
A devotee of classical music since childhood, in 2004 he gave the premiere of the monodrama for speaker and orchestra by Eric Tanguy, Sénèque, dernier jour in Paris with the Orchestre National de Bretagne. Blanc also wrote the text for Tanguy's theatrical work, Photo d’un enfant avec une trompette, for the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, which had its premiere during the theatre’s 2013-2014 season.[11]
As an actor he was sometimes dubbed a "sad clown" in the press, but he said this missed the mark. He told the French media and culture periodical Télérama "I'm not a sad clown at all, I'm a worried clown".[7]