Maurice Chevalier

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Over a performing career that spanned seven decades, singer and actor Maurice Chevalier (1888 - 1972) became one of the most familiar figures in the entertainment world. With his trademark straw hat and a cheerful romantic image, he was as popular in the United States as in his native France.

Born in Paris on September 12, 1888, Chevalier grew up in poverty. His alcoholic father, Victor, deserted the family when Maurice was eight, and his mother scraped together a living for herself and her three children as a lacemaker. When she got sick and was unable to work for a short period, Chevalier was placed in a government-run group foster home. Chevalier and his two older brothers were very close to their mother and gave her the nickname of La Louque - a word that had no meaning beyond its use as a term of endearment. Her real name was Josephine.

Fall Ended Acrobatic Career

Chevalier was determined to escape this hard life, and he saw the performing arts as a way out. At first he auditioned at a circus as an acrobat, but after he was injured in a fall his mother tried to steer him toward safer work. He became an engraver's apprentice, he tried carpentry, and he worked in a tack factory. He was fired from each of these jobs. He was fixed, however, in his desire to become a performer, even after he was laughed off the stage when he performed at an amateur-night event at a Paris café. Josephine Chevalier changed her tune and began to tell her son she was sure he would become a star.

So Chevalier kept at it and soon did well enough, at least, to earn free coffee when he sang in a café. Chevalier's theatrical instincts began to show when he began singing comic songs and added to his café performances some comedy routines that poked fun at his own youth. Café owners picked up on the joke and began to bill him as "the Baby Jesus." For the rest of his life, even with all his success as an actor and as a recording artist, the medium that brought out Chevalier's best was the one-man nightclub show, mixing music, humor, and skits with hand gestures and pantomime.

By the time he was 17, Chevalier was a well-known figure among those who frequented Paris nightspots, and he had performed as far afield as Marseilles in southeastern France. "Records and radio and movies did not exist at that time," Chevalier was quoted as saying by Alden Whitman of the New York Times. "It took years of traveling and playing to a few hundred people a night to build a reputation."

Found Love During Rug Routine

Unlike most of his contemporaries, Chevalier had begun paying his dues in early adolescence, and he was ready when a big break came his way in 1909: while performing at the Folies-Bergère music hall in Paris, he was assigned to partner Mistinguett, the leading female musichall performer of the day. Their routine began with the pair rolled up together in a rug; as it unrolled, it deposited them on stage, and they began to sing and dance. The routine made Chevalier's name with the Paris public, and the rug encounter touched off the first of his well-publicized romances; after Chevalier won a street fight with Mistinguett's aggrieved ex-boyfriend, the two were romantically involved for several years and even moved in together, although they never married.

The romance lasted through Chevalier's brutal experiences in World War I; he was drafted, suffered a punctured lung after being hit with a piece of shrapnel that passed through his backpack, and spent more than two years as a German prisoner of war. The only positive aspect of this ordeal was that he talked a fellow prisoner into teaching him English. After he was released, Chevalier was awarded the Croix de Guerre, a military honor roughly equivalent to the U.S. Purple Heart. Chevalier launched a solo career after the war and the relationship with Mistinguett cooled, although the two continued to perform together occasionally. He adopted his trademark straw hat after seeing a man on a London street wearing a tuxedo and straw hat that he liked.

Chevalier had appeared in films as early as 1914, and his acting career picked up during the golden age of silent film even though the art form could not accommodate his singing as yet. In 1922 and 1923 he had starring roles in the French films Gonzague, Le mauvais garcçon (The Bad Boy), and Par habitude (By Habit). Later in the 1920s, Chevalier suffered from what would now be called major depression. Twice he attempted to commit suicide, and he completely lost confidence in his performing ability. A year in a Swiss rehab facility did him no good, but finally a doctor forced him to perform for a small group of Swiss villagers and things began to turn around. In 1927, for the first and only time in his life, Chevalier married; his relationship with dancer Yvonne Vallée was stormy, and they divorced in 1935. Gradually, Chevalier rebuilt his rapport with crowds, although he froze up completely during his first American film audition.

Parodied by Marx Brothers

His next attempt went much better, and 1929's The Love Parade, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and co-starring Jeannette MacDonald, kicked off a series of American film hits for Chevalier, whose ability to combine singing, romantic interest, and comedy was tailor-made for the new "talkies." Chevalier garnered a pair of Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in 1930, one for The Love Parade and the other for Innocents of Paris. He sang his hit song "Paris" in both films. Other mostly French-themed movies followed, with the debonair Chevalier as romantic lead: The Big Pond (1930), The Playboy of Paris(1930), and Love Me Tonight (1932) all helped make Chevalier an American screen idol. He co-starred with Claudette Colbert in The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) and with Norma Shearer in The Merry Widow (1934). Chevalier was well known enough that the Marx Brothers could parody his singing of "If a Nightingale Could Sing Like You" in their 1934 farce "Monkey Business," confident that their nationwide audience would get the joke.

Never a top-notch singer, Chevalier succeeded on the strength of his ability to read and play to an audience. Among the performers he admired was vocalist Al Jolson, who was noted for powerful personal charisma in his live shows. Chevalier had some of the same ability to forge a bond with audiences, and, unlike Jolson for the most part, he was able to carry that ability over to the big screen. According to Alden Whitman in The New York Times, he attributed his success partly to his modest vocal skills. "Thank God, it was my good luck not to have any voice," he said. "If I had, I would have tried to be a singer who sings ballads in a voice like a velvet fog, but since I am barely able to half-talk and half-sing a song, it made me look for something to make me different from a hundred other crooners who are neither good nor bad."

Chevalier cut his own American film career short after a dispute with producer Irving Thalberg in 1936 over whether he or MacDonald should receive top billing in their next film. His popularity at home as a stage performer continued unabated, although he made no more films in France until that late 1940s and in the U.S. until the 1950s. Hitting his peak years as a cabaret performer, Chevalier found his life and career disrupted by World War II.

His situation was a dangerous one, for he was living with a Jewish woman, a young actress named Nita Raya. Chevalier kept a low profile after German troops overran France in the early stages of the war, and the two hid out at a house in the Free French zone, under Nazi government. At one point, Chevalier agreed to perform for a group of French prisoners held by the Germans. He was attacked as a Nazi collaborator, and the Washington Post editorialized that "evidently he was one of those artists who are at all times prepared to sing for their supper without bothering too much about the respectability of the host." Chevalier contended that he had performed in order to facilitate a prisoner exchange, and the controversy simmered down when General Dwight D. Eisenhower backed Chevalier's version of events. Chevalier later told Eisenhower's wife Mamie that the future president had saved his life - French resistance fighters were known to have gunned down suspected Nazi sympathizers.

Signed Anti-Nuclear Letter

Appearing with sympathetic friends such as songwriter Noel Coward, Chevalier worked his way back into public favor. He appeared in the French film Le silence est d'or (Silence Is Golden, released in the U.S. as Man About Town) in 1947 and gave a one-man show in New York that year. In 1951 he was set to return to Hollywood to resume his American film career, but the country was in the grip of anti-Communist hysteria, and Chevalier was denied entry because he had signed the Stockholm Appeal, a letter urging governments to renounce the use of nuclear weapons. He was finally allowed to enter the U.S. in 1954 and made several more concert tours.

Chevalier returned to American films in 1957 with a role in the Gary Cooper-Audrey Hepburn romantic farce Love in the Afternoon, for which he received a Golden Globe award nomination. The culmination of Chevalier's second career was the lavish film musical Gigi (1958), set in Paris and starring the young Leslie Caron but featuring Chevalier as an aging playboy. He was once again nominated for the Golden Globe best actor award, and he received a special Academy Award that year for career accomplishments.

Though he had spoken English for many years, Chevalier still had an imperfect command of the language. Some said that he carefully maintained the imperfections in his English diction, and indeed they became part of his image, heightening the charm of the witticisms that often dropped from his lips. When he turned 78 and was asked how it felt to have reached that age, his often-quoted reply was that he felt wonderful, considering the alternative.

Chevalier remained active into old age, staying in shape by doing calisthenics and playing golf, and he enjoyed adulation during several rounds of farewell tours. He appeared in films through the 1960s, including Fanny (1961), In Search of the Castaways (1962), I'd Rather Be Rich (1964), and Monkeys, Go Home! (1966), and he had a role in the animated feature The Aristocats in 1970. Shortly before his death he recorded the theme song for the French version of that film. Chevalier died in Paris on New Year's Day of 1972, at age 83.

Books

Chevalier, Maurice, I Remember It Well, Macmillan, 1970.

――――――, The Man in the Straw Hat, Crowell, 1949.

――――――, With Love, Little, Brown, 1960.

Periodicals

New York Times, January 2, 1972.

Washington Post, January 2, 1972.

Online

"Maurice Chevalier," All Movie Guide, http://www.allmovie.com (November 5, 2005).

Chevalier, Maurice (1888-1972). Singer, occasionally lyric-writer—the archetype of the popular singer from the French music-hall, with his dinner-jacket, boater, and thick Parisian accent. His early poverty-stricken years in Belleville led to a youthful debut in the local music-hall and durable success as the partner of Mistinguett at the Folies Bergère in 1912. The peak of his career came between the wars at the Casino de Paris and the Bouffes Parisiens, when around 1924 he first adopted his immortal stage costume and sang ‘Valentine’. His stay in Hollywood from 1928 to 1935 did nothing to diminish his popularity in France, but his very public personality created problems during the Occupation, when he was accused of collaboration and his reputation was seriously compromised; but he managed to retain his role as the singing ambassador of French frivolity until his farewell 80th birthday concert in 1968.

[Peter Hawkins]

Quotes:

"Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternatives."

"Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it."

Biography

Dubbed "the French Al Jolson," Maurice Chevalier was among the most beloved song-and-dance men of the pre-war era. Born September 12, 1888 in Paris, he was the youngest of nine children, quitting school at the age of 11 to work as an apprentice engraver and factory worker. Chevalier also later performed as a circus acrobat, but after suffering serious injuries he instead turned to singing in Parisian cafes and music halls; although his voice lacked power, he compensated with his fine comedic skills, and before long was among the most popular performers in France, often partnering with the infamous Minstinguett in the Folies-Bergere. Upon making his film debut in the 1908 silent comedy Trop Crédule, a series of other film roles followed before Chevalier joined the French forces fighting in World War I; from 1914 to 1916, he was held as a POW by the Germans, learning English from his fellow prisoners. He was later awarded a Croix de Guerre for his wartime service.

After his release, Chevalier returned to the cinema, as well as the cabaret circuit; clad in his trademark straw boater and bow tie, in 1925 he introduced "Valentine," one of the songs with which he remained identified for the duration of his career. Upon learning of the advent of motion picture sound, Chevalier relocated to Hollywood in 1928; a year later he made his American debut in Innocents of Paris, which popularized his song "Louise." He then traveled to New York, where he performed backed by Duke Ellington; returning to Hollywood, he next appeared opposite Jeanette MacDonald in Ernst Lubitsch's hit The Love Parade, a role which earned him an Academy Award nomination in the Best Actor category. Chevalier and MacDonald made a total of four films together, the most successful of them Rouben Mamoulian's 1932 effort Love Me Tonight, which included several original compositions by Rodgers & Hart, among them "Mimi" and "Isn't It Romantic."

With his happy-go-lucky charm and suave sophistication, Chevalier became a romantic superstar, but he abruptly left Hollywood in 1935, reportedly incensed over receiving second billing in a film; he returned to Europe a triumphant global success, quickly reclaiming his cabaret throne and continuing to appear in a variety of motion pictures. However, with the outbreak of World War II, Chevalier was reluctant to perform live in Nazi-occupied areas; he finally agreed to perform in Germany in 1941 on the condition that a group of French POWs be released. (Such dealings ultimately led to charges of Nazi collaboration, although he was later vindicated.) In the late 1940s, Chevalier developed a one-man stage show which he took to London and later the U.S.; after appearing in the 1950 feature Le Roi, he again attempted to return to America, but was denied re-entry after signing the anti-nuclear document known as the Stockholm Appeal.

In 1957, after several years away from the spotlight, Chevalier made a surprise return to Hollywood, appearing in Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon; a year later he starred in Gigi, the film's Lerner & Loewe score providing him with two of his signature songs, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and "I Remember It Well," the latter performed with Hermione Gingold. In 1959, Chevalier was awarded an honorary Oscar for "contributions to the world of entertainment for more than half a century." In 1960, he co-starred with Frank Sinatra and Louis Jourdan in Can-Can, but after 1961's Fanny he began appearing in smaller roles, typically cast as a patriarchal figure. After 1967's family comedy Monkeys, Go Home!, Chevalier retired from the screen, and his vocal rendition of the title song to the 1970 animated Disney feature The Aristocats was his last work in Hollywood; he died at home in Paris on January 1, 1972. ~ Jason Ankeny ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

Discography

Classic Hits of Maurice Chevalier Buy this CD

Gigi [Original Sountrack] Buy this CD

• Born: Sep 12, 1888 in Paris, France
• Died: Jan 01, 1972 in Paris, France
• Occupation: Actor, Writer
• Active: '20s-'30s, '50s-'60s
• Major Genres: Comedy, Musical
• Career Highlights: Gigi, Le Silence Est d'Or, The Merry Widow
• First Major Screen Credit: Gonzague (1922)

Biography

In the eyes of many film-buffs, actor Maurice Chevalier, with his sophisticated charm, zest for life, and wit, is the consummate movie Frenchman. Chevalier, born in Paris, was the youngest of nine children. His father was a house painter and did not work steadily. To help out, the 11-year-old Chevalier quit school to work as an apprentice engraver and a factory worker. After performing briefly as an acrobat, he was injured and unable to continue his acrobatics so began singing in Paris cafes and halls. It is odd that he should turn to music as Chevalier had a notoriously weak, and average singing voice; to compensate, he added a touch of comedy to his act and soon became the toast of the town. Though only 21, he got his biggest break when he became the revue partner of the infamous musical star Mistinguett in the Folies-Bergere. Soon she became his lover as well. While serving in World War I, Chevalier was captured and spent two years in a POW camp; later he was awarded a Croix de Guerre. After the war he rose to world fame as a star of music halls. His trademarks were his boulevardier outfit of a straw hat and bow tie, his suggestive swagger, and his aura of Epicurean enjoyment. Having appeared in a number of silent films, he moved to Hollywood in 1929 and was popular with American audiences as the light-hearted, sophisticated star of romantic films. He left Hollywood in 1935, but continued making movies elsewhere. In 1938 he was decorated a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. In 1951 he was refused re-entry to the United States because he had signed an anti-nuclear-weapons document, the "Stockholm Appeal." In 1958 he was allowed to return to Hollywood and receive a special Oscar "for his contributions to the world of entertainment for more than half a century." ~ All Movie Guide

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