It is getting to the point that you have to wear waders on flights these days. We just saw a recent case of Robert “Sandy” Vietze, 18, (a member of the U.S. Olympic ski Team) peeing on the leg of an 11-year-old girl. Now, famed actor Gerard Depardieu forced a plane to return to the airport after he relieved himself in the middle of the plane aisle in first class. The actor from Green Card and such masterpieces as Cyrano de Bergerac appears not to have been charged in contrast with other cases.
Witnesses reported that Depardieu asked to go to the bathroom but was told that he would have to wait 15 minutes while the plane was taking off. He didn’t. The plane had to then go back to the terminal to be cleaned.
What is interesting is that the articles do not mention any criminal charge like the indecent exposure charge brought against Vietze. Vietze, who like Depardieu had been drinking, was arrested upon arrival at the terminal.
It is not clear if he spoke lines from any of his most famous movies while holding forth on the CityJet flight to Dublin, but this would be apropos:
“Cyrano: I know, you will leave me with nothing–neither the laurel nor the rose. Take it all then! There is one possession I take with me from this place. Tonight when I stand before God–and bow low to him, so that my forehead brushes his footstool, the firmament–I will stand again and proudly show Him that one pure possession–which I have never ceased to cherish or to share with all–”
- Cyrano de Bergerac, Act 5
Source: CBS
What were you saying about the pinnacle of culture you experienced in France? Seriously, I read the article and it appears our cinematic Frenchman got caught in a perfect storm of age, alcohol, and airplane regulations about when he could use the toilet. While not approving his actions, I certainly empathize with his revulsion at the “cattle car” approach taken by some airlines in regards their passengers. When nature calls and the airline doesn’t respond, what’s a bon vivant to do? Merci!
I have a sneaky feeling the reason he was not arrested or charged was because it was an Air France flight and he is more or less a French national hero. I suspect the outcome would have been quite different had it been an American or British carrier.
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1402470681/
Think “Manon of the Spring” posted above is his best film.
Mespo: First class on Air France is not a “cattle car.” The “cattle car” is back in the economy section where peons like me sit.
Otteray Scribe is totally correct. If I, for example, peed in the aisle on an American Airlines flight because I couldn’t keep my legs crossed for 15 minutes, I would have been hauled off the plane and charged with something…
I thought the French were used to people peeing in the streets…
Depardieu probably imbibed too much Pee-not Noir before he boarded the plane.
Pee-not Noir!! Okay, drinking anything while reading this blog is risky … now I have to get a cloth and clean my screen.
Hilarious Elaine!
If airlines don’t want people to pee on their planes, they shouldn’t let people board when they are already drunk.
You think someone should have said Gerard Depardon’t.
No ? is cause he is ‘celebrity”
Y’all are nasty
He could pee on my aisle anyday!
and who here knows he was drunk anyway????!
SOMEBODY should pee on the airlines they’ve been peeing on us for years…
More on the Europee-an actor’s plane incident from Anderson Cooper:
hahahahahahahahaha!
oui oui!
Anderson Cooper is pretty hot too…
Damn, AC needs new writers……
Swarthmore Mom,
Were you thinking of “Jean de Florette” ? “Mannon of the Spring” was the sequel. I would recommend them both.
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi279511321/
wow, question pour les Advocates….if he really WAS trying to pee in a bottle, if there WERE extreme delays in takeoff….does he have an action for the public ridicule that he is undergoing because damn, maybe he was drunk (had the airline served any liquor?) but maybe he, as an older gentleman, has other issues that contribute to urgency…..and if he DOES have these problems, does the airline have a duty to his comfort and care in flight (which also includes the entire time of being in the plane from when the cabin doors are locked….) Did the airline announce that there would be no potty available prior to takeoff or did this juicy bit of info get announced just as the plane was taking off and no recourse was available?
Typecasting?
SO long as he was over a body of water, he was just doing what the airlines already do….do…
Sometimes the aim is as bad as his…..but the lingering question was the seat up….
Frozen toilet waste drops into family’s bathroom
A chunk of frozen toilet waste from an airliner has damaged a bathroom in a
Long Island house after crashing through the roof.
Teacher Susan Seltzer, of North Massapequa, had left the house in New York
state to go shopping just before the waste crashed through her roof.
The New York Daily News says she found ice, about the size of a honeydew
melon, in the hallway when she returned.
Her husband Kenneth said the ball of ice punched a hole in the roof, damaged
joists in the attic and then holed the bathroom ceiling before bouncing 15
feet down the hall.
The family has a second bathroom which wasn’t hit.
Mrs Seltzer said: “Aren’t they supposed to dump this stuff over the ocean? I
don’t think they were aiming for my toilet.”
Local police and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the
incident.
Airliners are supposed to dump toilet waste over bodies of water.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/920576/
that is just gross….shit happens
so what is more ridiculous, …the rare occurance of an older incontinent man, or the consolidated crap of a multitude of corporations winging around at 30000 ft …cause it aint just tinkle that they drop in everyone elses way….
Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, two movies I have the highest respect for and that introduced me to Depardieu’s formidable talent.
At some point in time being able to get to a lavatory when you need one isn’t negotiable. The article says he was on a delayed flight so there’s no telling how long he was in need of the facility before he actually asked to use it. The only thing any service industry worker should say if someone asks them to use the lav is “OK”, holding up a plane for 10 minutes while some person does their business is preferable to having to taxi back to the terminal and clean a plane.
Since planes are becoming little more than cattle cars anyway I suggest that the airlines just start putting down a nice thick layer of straw on the floor and hand out those little packaged hand wipes as people board the plane.
CEJ, Saw them both.
This is what I love about legal people. Your sense of humour!
Still laughing about Pee-not Noir and Gerard Depardon’t! I’m going to have to use those over here and see if the humour translates!
And, of course, there is the question of why those who have to sit back in coach are just “pee-ons.”