He was a member of the French bobsleigh team in the 1960s and a winning Paris-Dakar rally competitor as co-pilot of Jacky Ickx.

From the late 1950s until two years before his death, Brasseur appeared in overall 150 film and television productions.

One of his film roles was as Arthur in Jean-Luc Godard's Bande à part (1964).

Brasseur played the title role in the early 1970s historical crime television series The New Adventures of Vidocq.

He is buried alongside his father at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.