NEW YORK (Reuters) - French actor Gerard Depardieu will be honoured at this year's tribute of the Film Society of the Lincoln Centre which recognizes the extraordinary career of a distinguished film artist each year.

About 20 of Depardieu's films will be shown from Aug 3-19 as part of the tribute, including his Academy Award-nominated role as the literary hero in "Cyrano de Bergerac."

"Depardieu's to European cinema in the '70s what Brando was to American cinema in the '50s," Kent Jones, associate director of programming at the Film Society of Lincoln Centre, said in a statement.

"He was able to connect to and represent the whole gamut of European males: tough guy, stud, intellectual, bourgeois, anarchic rebel, hedonist."

Jones said Depardieu, 58, was also an emblematic figure in American moviegoing, seen by anyone with adventurous tastes in the '60s, '70s and '80s.

"Doing this series now is not just saluting him, its saluting an era of moviegoing."

The actor had a rocky start in life, according to a biography released by the New York-based society.

He was born in Chateauroux, France, the third of six children to an alcoholic father, and ran away from home.

He worked odd jobs before starting to steal which led to a short stay in prison and it was when a friend supposedly convinced Depardieu to audition for the Theatre National Populaire in Paris that he found acting.

He broke into both film and television in the mid-1960s by playing character roles that somewhat reflected his disreputable past but his career really took off in 1974, when he starred in Bertrand Blier's "Going Places," about two loafers pillaging their way across France.

He has won a list of awards during the career including a Cannes Film Festival acting award, an Oscar nomination for "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1990), and twice won France's Cesar Award for Best Actor.

In 2005, Depardieu announced his intention to retire from screen acting -- but has appeared in nearly 20 films since then and is scheduled to perform in eight films in the next two years, said the Film Society of the Lincoln Centre.

The actor also has a mix of business interests including two Parisian restaurants, a vineyard in the Loire valley, Romanian textile and telecom outlets and Cuban oil wells.

Separately from the Depardieu retrospective in August, the Film Society of Lincoln Centre hosts several other events.

In 1972, the Film Society created the Annual Gala Tribute, beginning with the effort to return Charlie Chaplin to the United States from Switzerland.

Past honourees include Fred Astaire, Alfred Hitchcock, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Jack Lemmon, and Diane Keaton.