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Marcel Marceau

 

(born March 22, 1923, Strasbourg, France — died Sept. 22, 2007, Cahors) French mime. After serving in World War II, he studied with the pantomimist Étienne Decroux and had his first success in the role of Arlequin in Baptiste. He formed a mime troupe (1949 – 64) and earned worldwide acclaim in the 1950s with his production of the "mimodrama" of Nikolay Gogol's Overcoat. In 1978 he founded a school of mimodrama in Paris. He was noted for his eloquent, deceptively simple portrayals, including his celebrated white-faced character Bip, reminiscent of Pierrot and of Charlie Chaplin's Tramp. Marceau, who also acted in several movies, retired from performing in 2005. See also mime and pantomime.

For more information on Marcel Marceau, visit Britannica.com.

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Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

Marcel Marceau

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Marcel Marceau (1923-2007) has been acknowledged as the world's greatest practitioner of pantomime. He revived this ancient form of acting and created a new school to train young people who aspired to follow his style.

Marcel Marceau was born in Strasbourg, France, on March 22, 1923. His father, Charles, was a butcher and his mother, Ann, née Werzberg, was a native Alsatian. Later the family moved to Lille where his father also raised pigeons on the roof. Marcel remembered in his mature years that he was raised hearing the sound of wing beats. The sound enchanted him; so did silent films. Marceau once commented, "When I was five years old my mother took me to see Charlie Chaplin's moving pictures…. I sat entranced…. It was then that I decided to become a mime." Borrowing his father's pants and using ink to paint on a moustache, he tried to imitate the famous comedian of the silent screen. Soon he began imitating birds, plants, trees, and eventually people. Encouraged by his parents, he turned to a career in the theater. Much later - in 1967 - he met Chaplin for the first time, only briefly between planes at Paris' Orly Airport, where they expressed their mutual admiration. He was deeply touched. When parting he brought the old man's hands to his lips and kissed them.

Marceau returned to Alsace, where he entered the Lycée Fustel de Coulanges. But he was unable to complete his training. In 1940, just ahead of the German invaders, he sought refuge in Limoges. There he studied ceramics, and at the age of 17 he won the Masson prize for his enamel work. He also studied oratory with Dorsanne. The war, however, brought personal tragedy. His father was seized by the Germans and died in Auschwitz. Marcel joined his brother in the resistance movement; his activities consisted of making fake ration cards and smuggling children into Switzerland.

When the police began to close in, Marceau fled to Paris where a cousin saved him by placing him in the Maison d'Enfants de Sèvres, an orphanage. There Marceau taught dramatics. In his spare time he also began studying with Charles Dullin in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre. He also came under the tutelage of the master of mime, Etienne Decroux, of whom he said, "He was a kind of Christ…. In his class we dedicated our bodies to the discipline of silence." The art of pantomime did not attract many students, and even fewer spectators; in fact, the children of the Maison de Sèvres were his first audience. Small wonder that he came to believe that chiefly the young understood his art. Decroux was his most critical admirer and told him, "Marceau, you are a born mime." He interrupted his studies in December, 1944, to join the French army. In Germany he played in a military theater before troops until he was demobilized in 1946. Immediately he returned to playing minor roles at the Sarah Bernhardt Theater. As a member of the Decroux Company he put on his first mimodrama, "Praxitele and the Golden Fish," which won enough praise to launch his career.

In 1947 Marceau set up his own company at the Theatre de Poche (Pocket Theatre), a tiny hall with only 80 seats. Here he created his own whitefaced clown, Bip, a name he derived from the youngster Pip in Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations. Bip's costume consisted of a broken top hat with a red flower and striped pull-over middy to symbolize the gaiety of Paris streets and white pants. Bip first appeared on Marceau's 24th birthday in "Bip and the Street Girl." Pantomime did not attract large audiences at first, and he had to perform in cabarets to earn enough to live on until he won success in 1952 with "Pierrot of Montmartre" in the 1,200 seat Sarah Bernhardt Theatre. By this time Marceau had attained fame beyond the confines of Paris and France. In 1949 his company toured Israel and Holland, in 1951 it played in Berlin, in 1955 the United States and Canada. Beginning in New York, the tour - originally scheduled for two weeks - lasted three months. This enabled him to become famous not just in Europe, but throughout the world. "When I went back to Paris after being a hit on Broadway in 1955, everything changed for me. It was a new, almost frightening experience," he recalled in the New York Times.

Marceau also found himself involved in other media. Television offered him vast audiences; he even won two Emmy Awards from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and showed himself to be articulate when he was interviewed. Through his work, Marceau obtained a knighthood in the French Legion of Honor, an officer's rank in the National Order of Merit, and a comedy rank in the National Order of Arts and Letters of France. He appeared in six feature films, among them Barbarella (1968), Shanks (1974), in which he played the leading role, and Silent Movie. He also wrote a novel, Pimparello.

Marceau truly became a worldwide figure, eventually giving 18,000 performances in over a hundred countries. Marceau's original mime company disbanded in 1964, but in the 1980s a subsidy from the French government enabled him to form a new company, with graduates from his Paris mime school. The latter was founded in 1978, and instructed students in the art of mime. Among the often-sophisticated plots Marceau used in his performances were adaptations of Gogol's The Overcoat and Kafka's The Trial. He acknowledged owing a great deal to the silent comics, including Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. Marceau summed up his career in the New York Times by commenting, "The art of mime is an art of metamorphosis…. [Y]ou cannot say in mime what you can say better in words. You have to make a choice. It is the art of the essential. And you cannot lie. You have to show the truth."

Further Reading

Biographies of Marceau in English include Ben Martin's Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime (1979); and in French Guy and Jeanne Verrient-Lefert's Marcel Marceau ou l'aventure du silence (Descléand De Brouwer, 1974) which consists of a very long interview with Marceau; There is also information in Pierre Ricky's Jeu Silencieux (edition de l'Amicole, 1970), a study of pantomime. Critical evaluations of him can be found in the New York Times (September 18th, 1955); New Yorker (October 15th, 1955); Horizon (April, 1978); People (February 12th, 1979); and New York Times (December 2nd, 1993).

Oxford Dictionary of Dance:

Marcel Marceau

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Marceau, Marcel (b Strasbourg, 22 Mar. 1923). French mime artist. He studied with Dullin and Decroux and made his debut as Harlequin in Jean-Louis Barrault's production of Baptiste in 1947. That same year he formed his own company which he has been taking around the world ever since. In 1997 he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his comic creation, Bip. Despite changes in fashion which have seen mime move on from the rather naïve style he represents, Marceau remains the most famous mime in the world today. In 1971 he collaborated with the Hamburg Ballet on a version of Candide.

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Marcel Marceau

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Marceau, Marcel (märsĕl' märsō'), 1923-2007, French mime, b. Strasbourg as Marcel Mangel. Marceau studied under Charles Dullin and master mime Étienne Decroux in Paris. He gained renown in 1947 with the creation of Bip, a silent, sad, white-faced clown with a battered stovepipe hat decorated with a limp red flower. Almost single-handedly responsible for the revival of the art of mime in modern times, he performed an average of 200 shows a year, most of them outside France. Marceau and his Compagnie de Mimodrame (est. 1949) appeared frequently in the United States from 1955 to 2000. In 1978 he founded the Ecole de mimodrame de Paris, which has trained hundreds of performers. Marceau appeared in more than a dozen films, including Un jardin public (1955), and also made lithographs and wrote children's books.

Bibliography

See his Bip in a Book (2002, with B. Goldstone); G. Mendoza, The Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book (1970).

Quotes By:

Marcel Marceau

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Quotes:

"I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment."

"Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?"

AMG AllMovie Guide:

Marcel Marceau

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Biography

Born in Strasbourg, France in 1923, Marcel Mangel had a long way to go before he became the foremost mime artist in the world. He came from a Jewish family that had an artistic lean based on the many dancers and musicians that it produced. It wasn't until he was 15 that Marcel changed his last name to Marceau (after a famous French general), to hide his Jewish origins when France entered WWII. Both Marceau and his brother Alain worked in the French underground, often risking their lives to help Jews escape their occupied homeland. Young Marcel went so far as to portray a Boy Scout director to lead hundreds of young Jewish children on "hikes" in the Alps, helping them flee into Switzerland. By 1944, Marceau's father was deported to Auschwitz (where he died), and Marceau and his brother departed to Paris, where they felt safe. It was here that Marceau resumed his earlier dreams of being an actor, inspired by silent film greats like Chaplin, Keaton, and the Marx Brothers. But, despite his best efforts, he was again sidetracked by WWII when he was asked to be a liaison officer with Patton's army, because his English was so good. Finally in 1946, he enrolled in the renowned Charles Dullin School of Dramatic Art where he studied under Etienne Decroux, who introduced him to the art form of mime. Soon Marceau developed his own distinct style of mine, which was easily accessible to a mass audience. As his popularity grew, he created what he called "mimodramas" which led quickly to what is now known as modern mime. In 1947, Marceau developed a reoccurring character he called Bip. Modeled after his movie hero Chaplin's Little Tramp, Bip was the underdog, a melancholy sad sack dressed in a striped shirt, white sailor pants, and a top hat with a single red flower sprouting from the lid, that became his signature alter ego. Over the next ten years Marceau appeared on stage, screen, and television, making his mark in all art forms, although his live performance will be what he is best remembered for; it was in the 1950s that Americans everywhere were awakened to the magic of mime because of his appearances on television. While he did not appear in a multitude of films, Marceau did use his art to the fullest advantage. In First Class, he played 17 different roles; in Shanks he played the title character who is a deaf-mute puppeteer, allowing him to showcase his talent. He also appeared in Barbarella as Professor Ping, and was the only one with a speaking part in the Mel Brooks comedy Silent Movie ("Non!"). Marceau continued to appear in various film projects throughout his later life, but the majority of those years he spent teaching his craft to others. After officially retiring from stage activity in 2005, Marceau died of undisclosed causes at age 84, in September 2007. ~ Rovi
Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Marcel Marceau

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Marcel Marceau

Marcel Marceau as Bip the Clown
Born Marcel Mangel
22 March 1923(1923-03-22)
Strasbourg, France
Died 22 September 2007(2007-09-22) (aged 84)
Cahors, Lot, France
Occupation Actor, mime artist
Spouse Anne Sicco (1975-2007)
Ella Jaroszewicz (m. 1966)
Huguette Mallette (div. 1958)

Marcel Marceau (22 March 1923 – 22 September 2007) was an internationally acclaimed French actor and mime most famous for his persona as Bip the Clown.

Contents

Early years

He was born Marcel Mangel in Strasbourg, France to a Jewish family. His parents were Ann Werzberg and Charles Mangel,[1] a kosher butcher. When Marcel was four years old, the family moved to Lille, but they later returned to Strasbourg.[2] When France entered World War II, Marcel, 16, fled with his family to Limoges.[2] In 1944 Marcel's father was captured and deported to the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was killed. Marcel's mother survived.

Marcel and his older brother, Alain, adopted the last name "Marceau" during the German occupation of France; the name was chosen as a reference to François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, a general of the French Revolution.[2][3] The two brothers joined the French Resistance in Limoges, where they saved numerous children from the race laws and concentration camps, and, after the liberation of Paris, joined the French army.[2] Owing to Marcel's excellent command of the English language, he worked as a liaison officer with General George Patton's army.[2][4] Marcel started miming as a way of keeping children quiet as they were escaping to neutral Switzerland.[5]

Marceau was demobilized in 1946.[2] He enrolled as a student in Charles Dullin's School of Dramatic Art in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris, where he studied with teachers like Joshua Smith and the great master, Étienne Decroux, who had also taught Jean-Louis Barrault.

Before beginning his career as a mime, Marcel Marceau danced with Rina Shaham (née Rosalind Gologorsky); she ended their partnership to pursue a successful career in modern dance in Israel.[citation needed]

Career

Marcel Marceau, 1995

Marceau joined Jean-Louis Barrault's company and was soon cast in the role of Arlequin in the pantomime, Baptiste (which Barrault had interpreted in the film Les Enfants du Paradis).[6] Marceau's performance won him such acclaim that he was encouraged to present his first "mimodrama", Praxitele and the Golden Fish, at the Bernhardt Theatre that same year. The acclaim was unanimous and Marceau's career as a mime was firmly established.

In 1947 Marceau created Bip the Clown and was first played at the Théâtre de Poche (Pocket Theatre) in Paris. In his appearance he wore a striped pullover and a battered, beflowered silk opera hat. The outfit signified life's fragility and Bip became his alter ego, just as the "Little Tramp" became Charlie Chaplin's. Bip's misadventures with everything from butterflies to lions, from ships and trains, to dance-halls or restaurants, were limitless. As a style of Pantomime, Marceau was acknowledged without peer. His silent mimed exercises, which included The Cage, Walking Against the Wind, The Mask Maker, and In The Park, all became classic displays. Satires on everything from sculptors to matadors were described as works of genius. Of his summation of the ages of man in the famous Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death, one critic said: "He accomplishes in less than two minutes what most novelists cannot do in volumes."

In 1949, following his receipt of the Deburau Prize (established as a memorial to the 19th century mime master Jean-Gaspard Deburau) for his second mimodrama, Death before Dawn, Marceau founded Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau, the only company of pantomime in the world at the time. The ensemble played the leading Paris theaters, such as Le Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Le Théâtre de la Renaissance, and the Bernhardt Theatre, as well as other playhouses throughout the world. From 1959 to 1960, a retrospective of his mimodramas, including The Overcoat by Gogol, ran for a full year at the Amibigu Theatre in Paris. He produced 15 other mimodramas, including Pierrot de Montmartre, The Three Wigs, The Pawn Shop, 14 July, The Wolf of Tsu Ku Mi, Paris Cries—Paris Laughs and Don Juan (adapted from the Spanish writer Tirso de Molina).

World recognition

With United States President Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn Carter, and Amy Carter, 16 June 1977

Marceau performed all over the world in order to spread the "art of silence" (L'art du silence). It was the intellectual minority who knew of him until he first toured the United States in 1955 and 1956, close on the heels of his North American debut at the Stratford Festival of Canada. After his opening engagement at the Phoenix Theater in New York, which received rave reviews, he moved to the larger Barrymore Theater to accommodate the public demand. This first US tour ended with a record-breaking return to standing-room-only crowds in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and other major cities. His extensive transcontinental tours included South America, Africa, Australia, China, Japan, South East Asia, Russia, and Europe. His last world tour covered the United States in 2004, and returned to Europe in 2005 and Australia in 2006. He was one of the world's most renowned mimes.

Marceau's art became familiar to millions through his many television appearances. His first television performance as a star performer on the Max Liebman , Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore, and he also had his own one-man show entitled "Meet Marcel Marceau". He teamed with Red Skelton in three concerts of pantomimes.

Marceau also showed his versatility in motion pictures such as First Class, in which he played 17 roles, Shanks, where he combined his silent art, playing a deaf and mute puppeteer, and his speaking talent, as a mad scientist; as Professor Ping in Barbarella, and a cameo as himself in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie, in which, with purposeful irony, his character has the only audible speaking part, uttering the single word "No!" when Brooks asks him (via intertitle) if he would participate in the film. He also had a role in a low-budget film roughly based on his life story called Paint It White. The film was never completed because another actor in the movie, a life-long friend[who?] with whom he had attended school, died halfway through filming.

As an author, Marceau published two books for children, the Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book and the Marcel Marceau Counting Book, and poetry and illustrations, including La ballade de Paris et du Monde (The Ballad of Paris and of the World), an art book which he wrote in 1966, and The Story of Bip, written and illustrated by Marceau and published by Harper and Row. In 1982, Le Troisième Œil, (The Third Eye), his collection of ten original lithographs, was published in Paris with an accompanying text by Marceau. Belfond of Paris published Pimporello in 1987. In 2001, a new photo book for children titled Bip in a Book, published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, appeared in the bookstores in the US, France and Australia.

In 1969, Marcel Marceau opened his first school, Ecole Internationale de Mime, in the Théàtre de la Musique in Paris. The school was open for two years with fencing, acrobatics, ballet and five teachers of Mime.

In 1978, Marceau established his own school, École Internationale de Mimodrame de Paris, Marcel Marceau (International School of Mimodrame of Paris, Marcel Marceau). In 1996, he established the Marceau Foundation to promote mime in the United States.

In 1995, pop megastar Michael Jackson and Marceau conceived a concert for HBO, but the concert was cancelled because Jackson had collapsed due to a panic attack prior to the concert. In 2000, Marceau brought his full mime company to New York City for presentation of his new mimodrama, The Bowler Hat, previously seen in Paris, London, Tokyo, Taipei, Caracas, Santo Domingo, Valencia (Venezuela) and Munich. From 1999, when Marceau returned with his classic solo show to New York and San Francisco after 15-year absences for critically acclaimed sold-out runs, his career in America enjoyed a remarkable renaissance with strong appeal to a third generation. He latterly appeared to overwhelming acclaim for extended engagements at such legendary American theaters as The Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, demonstrating the timeless appeal of the work and the mastery of this unique artist.

Marceau's new full company production Les Contes Fantastiques (Fantasy Tales) opened to great acclaim at the Théâtre Antoine in Paris.

Personal life

Marceau was married three times: first to Huguette Mallet, with whom he had two sons, Michel and Baptiste; then, to Ella Jaroszewicz, with whom he had no children. His third wife was Anne Sicco, with whom he had two daughters, Camille and Aurélia.[7]

Death and commemoration

Marcel Marceau in 2004

Marcel Marceau died at the racetrack in Cahors, France, on 22 September 2007 at the age of 84. At his burial ceremony, the second movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 (which Marceau long used as an accompaniment for an elegant mime routine) was played, as was the sarabande of Bach's Cello Suite No. 5. Marcel Marceau was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.[8] In 1999 New York City declared 18 March "Marcel Marceau Day".

Awards and honors

Marceau was made a commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, an Officer of the Légion d'honneur, and in 1978 he received the Médaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris.[9] The City of Paris awarded him a grant which enabled him to reopen his International School which offered a three-year curriculum. In November 1998, President Jacques Chirac made Marceau a grand officer of the Ordre national du Mérite.

Marceau was an elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts Berlin, the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France.

Marceau held honorary doctorates from Ohio State University, Linfield College, Princeton University and the University of Michigan. In April 2001, Marceau was awarded the Wallenberg Medal by the University of Michigan in recognition of his humanitarianism and acts of courage aiding Jews and other refugees during World War II.

Marceau accepted the honor and responsibilities of serving as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Second World Assembly on Aging, which took place in Madrid, Spain, in April 2002.

Published works

Bibliography

  • Martin, Ben. Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime, Paddington Press (UK) Limited, 1978. ISBN 0-448-22680-4

References

  1. ^ "Marcel Marceau Biography". filmreference. 2008. http://www.filmreference.com/film/35/Marcel-Marceau.html. Retrieved 22 January 2009. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Marcel Marceau; Celebrated French mime artist whose clowning dramas eloquently expressed the wonder and terror of existence". The Times (London). 24 September 2007. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article2517662.ece. Retrieved 12 May 2010. 
  3. ^ Luther, Claudia (24 September 2007). "Marcel Marceau, 84; legendary mime was his art's standard-bearer for seven decades". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/24/local/me-marceau24. Retrieved 27 September 2008. 
  4. ^ Sage, Adam. "Marcel Marceau, master of silence whose comic language enchanted the world". The Times, 24 September 2007.
  5. ^ Meacham, Steve (29 November 2009). "How mayonnaise sandwiches saved kids from Nazis". The Age (Fairfax). http://www.theage.com.au/world/how-mayonnaise-sandwiches-saved-kids-from-nazis-20091128-jxwq.html. 
  6. ^ "Master of Mime passes away",[dead link] The Australian.
  7. ^ "Marcel Marceau, Renowned Mime, Dies at 84", The New York Times, 24 September 2007.
  8. ^ Associated Press (26 September 2007). "Marcel Marceau laid to rest". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/09/26/france.marceaufuneral.ap/index.html. Retrieved 4 January 2008. [dead link]
  9. ^ Kirkup, James (24 September 2007). "Marcel Marceau: Mime Artist and Teacher". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/marcel-marceau-403326.html. Retrieved 6 February 2009. 

External links


 
 
Related topics:
Art of Silence: Pantomimes with Marcel Marceau (1975 Theater Film)
Season 10, Episode 15: The Red Skelton Show (TV Episode) (1961 Comedy TV Episode)
Es (1965 Film)

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
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