[1] He appeared in over 100 films in over 30 years,[2] but was best known for his role as the fictional television private detective Nestor Burma.

[3] Guy Émile Marchand was born in Paris, 19th arrondissement,[4] the son of a scrap merchant and a housewife and grew up in Belleville, during the Occupation and contracted tuberculosis at the age of ten.

[7] His military service was in an airborne troops division at the École des troupes aéroportées (BETAP) in Pau, becoming a sous-lieutenant – parachutist.

His film career mainly saw him in supporting roles; an inspector opposite Lino Ventura in Garde à vue, by Claude Miller won him a César in 1982 and the same year he was in Nestor Burma, détective de choc, by Jean-Luc Miesch, where Michel Serrault took the title role, but which Marchand later interpreted for over ten years in the television series Nestor Burma.

He published an autobiography entitled Le Guignol des Buttes-Chaumont in 2007 in which he wrote of his childhood, experiences in Algeria, his singing career and love for cars.