- Born
- Died
- Birth nameMarcel Mangel
- Height5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
- Marcel Marceau was the legendary mime, who survived the Nazi
occupation, and saved many children in WWII. He was regarded for his
peerless style pantomime, moving audiences without uttering a single
word, and was known to the World as a "master of silence."
He was born Marcel Mangel on March 22, 1923, in Strasbourg, Alsace,
France, and was brought up in Strasbourg and Lille. There he was
introduced to music and theatre by his father, Charles Mangel, a kosher
butcher, who also sang baritone and was a supporter of arts and music.
His mother, Anne Mangel (née Werzberg), was a native Alsatian, and the
family was bilingual. At the age of 5, his mother took Marcel to a
Charlie Chaplin's movie, and he was entranced and decided to become a
mime. Young Marcel was also fond of art and literature, he studied
English in addition to his French and German, and became trilingual.
At the beginning of the Second World War, he had to hide his Jewish
origin and changed his name to Marceau, when his Jewish family was
forced to flee their home. His father was deported to Auschwitz, where
he was killed in 1944. Both Marceau and his brother, Alain, were in the
French underground, helping children to escape to safety in neutral
Switzerland. Then Marceau served as interpreter for the Free French
Forces under General
Charles de Gaulle, acting as liaison
officer with the allied armies.
Marcel Marceau gave his first big public performance to 3000 troops
after liberation of Paris in August of 1944. After the war, in 1946, he
enrolled as a student in Charles Dullin's School of Dramatic Art at the
Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in
Paris. There his teacher was
Etienne Decroux, whose other apprentice
Jean-Louis Barrault hired Marcel
Marceau, and cast him in the role as Arlequin. His biggest inspirations
were Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Marx Brothers. In 1947,
blending the 19th century harlequin with the gestures of Chaplin and
Keaton, Marceau created his most famous mime character, Bip, a
white-faced clown with a tall, battered hat and a red flower. In 1949
he created his own company and toured around the world.
Marcel Marceau shone in a range of characters, from an innocent child,
to a peevish waiter, to a lion tamer, to an old woman, and became
acknowledged as one of the world's finest mimes. In just a couple of
minutes, he could show a metamorphosis of an entire human life from
birth to death. Through his alter ego, Bip, he played out the human
comedy without uttering a word. His classic silent works such as The
Cage, Walking Against the Wind, The Mask Maker, In The Park, and
satires on artists, sculptors, matadors, has been described as works of
genius. For many years Marceau's 'Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau',
also known as 'Compagnie de Mimodrame', was the only company of
pantomime in the world. Marceau played several silent film roles and
only one with a speaking part, as himself, speaking the single word
"Non" in Mel Brooks'
Silent Movie (1976).
In 1959, Marcel Marceau established his own school in Paris, and later
the Marceau Foundation to promote the art of pantomime in the United
States. His later performances in 2000-2001 received great acclaim. He
was made "Officer de la Legion d'Honneur" (1978) and "Grand Officer de
la Legion d'Honneur" (1998), and was awarded the National Order of
Merit (1998). He won the Emmy Award for his work on television, and was
elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, the Academy of
Fine Arts in Munich, the Academie des beaux-arts France and the
Institut de France, and was declared "National treasure" in Japan. In
2002 he was UN Goodwill Ambassador at the international conference on
aging in Madrid.
His "art of silence" filled a remarkable acting career that lasted over
60 years. He was an actor, director, teacher, interpreter, and public
figure, and made extensive tours in countries on five continents.
Outside of his mime profession, Marcel Marceau was a multilingual
speaker and a great communicator, who surprised many with his flowing
speeches in several languages. In his later years he was living on a
farm at Cahors, near Toulouse, France. He continued his routine
practice daily to keep himself in good form, never losing the agility
that made him famous. He also continued coaching his numerous students.
Marcel Marceau passed away at his home in France, on September 23,
2007, like an Autumn leaf after the Autumn Equinox, and after Yom
Kippur in Jewish calendar, having the Day of Atonement as his final
curtain. His burial ceremony was accompanied by the Mozart's piano
concerto No21, and the music of J.C. Bach. Marcel Marceau was laid to
rest in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France.
He brought poetry to silence.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov
- SpousesAnne Sicco(1975 - September 22, 2007) (his death, 2 children)Ella Jaroszewicz(June 16, 1966 - ?) (divorced)Huguette Mallette(? - 1958) (divorced, 2 children)
- Children
- ParentsCharles MangelAnne Werzberg
- Performs mime in whiteface as his character "Bip"
- Had the only speaking part in Mel Brooks' film Silent Movie (1976).
- His "Walking Against the Wind" routine inspired Michael Jackson's moonwalk.
- In the early 1950s, he was virtually unknown in his native France (which
has a strong mime tradition). Laurel & Hardy were doing a world tour
and, while they were playing Paris, someone tipped them off that Marceau was doing incredible mime in an insignificant suburban theatre. They went to see him and, a few days later, instead of doing the second half of their regular show after the interval, Stan introduced Marceau and, more or less, scolded the audience for ignoring such a talent... and then Laurel & Hardy walked offstage and gave the second half of their show to Marceau. - His father, Charles, perished in Auschwitz in 1944.
- Notably talkative off-stage.
- Among those kids was maybe an Einstein, a Mozart, somebody who (would have) found a cancer drug. That is why we have a great responsibility. Let us love one another. - on the children killed in Auschwitz.
- If you stop at all when you are 70 or 80, you cannot go on. You have to keep working. - 2003 Associated Press interview.
- I have a feeling that I did for mime what (Andres) Segovia did for the guitar, what (Pablo) Casals did for the cello. - Associated Press interview.
- Yes, I cried for him. - on his father's death in Auschwitz
- The people who came back from the [concentration] camps were never able to talk about it. My name is Mangel. I am Jewish. Perhaps that, unconsciously, contributed towards my choice of silence. - on a reason for his interest in the wordless art.
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