Marcel Marceau
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Marcel Marceau (born March 22, 1923) is a well-known mime and among the most popular representatives of this art form world-wide.
He was born Marcel Mangel in Strasbourg, France. After having seen Charlie Chaplin, he became interested in acting and from 1946 on he studied at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris with teachers like Charles Dullin and Étienne Decroux (who was also the teacher of Jean-Louis Barrault).
At 15, his Jewish family was forced to flee their home as France entered the Second World War. He later joined Charles De Gaulle's Free French Forces and, because of his excellent English, worked as a liaison officer with General Patton's army.
In 1946, he enrolled as a student in Charles Dullin's School of Dramatic Art in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris, where he studied with the great master, Etienne Decroux, who had also taught Jean-Louis Barrault. The latter noticed Marceau's exceptional talent, made him a member of his company, and cast him in the role of Arlequin in the pantomime entitled Baptiste - which Barrault himself had interpreted in the world famous film Les Enfants du Paradis. Marceau's performance won him such acclaim that he was encouraged to present his first "mimodrama", called "Praxitele and the Golden Fish," at the Bernhardt Theatre that same year. The acclaim was so unanimous that Marceau's career as a mime was firmly established.
In 1947, Marceau created "Bip", the clown who in his striped pullover and battered, deflowered opera hat, has become his alter-ego, even as Chaplin's "Little Tramp" became that star's personality. Bip's misadventures with everything from butterflies to lions, on ships and trains, in dance-halls or restaurants, are limitless.
As a style pantomime, Marceau has been acknowledged without peer. His silent exercises, which include such classic works at The Cage, Walking Against the Wind, The Mask Maker, and In The Park, and satires on everything from sculptors to matadors, have been 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 can not do in volumes."
In 1949, following his receipt of the renowned Deburau Prize (established as a memorial to the 19th century mime master Jean-Gaspard Deburau) for his second mimodrama, "Death before Dawn," Marceau formed his Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau - the only company of pantomime in the world at the time. The ensemble played the leading Paris theaters - Le Theatre des Champs-Elyees, Le Theatre de la Renaissance, and the Sarah Bernhardt, as well as other playhouses throughout the world. During the 1959-60, a retrospective of his mimodramas, including the famous Overcoat by Gogol, ran for a full year at the Amibigu Theatre in Paris. He has produced 15 other mimodramas, including Pierrot de Montmartre, The 3 Wigs, The Pawn Shop, 14th July, The Wolf of Tsu Ku Mi, Paris Cries--Paris Laughs, and Don Juan - adapted from the Spanish writer Tirso de Molina.
He first toured the United States in 1955-56, close on the heels of his North American debut at the Stratford (Ontario) Festival. 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, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and other major cities. His extensive transcontinental tours have included South America, Africa, Australia, China, Japan, South East Asia, Russia and Europe.
Marceau's art has become familiar to millions of Americans through his many television appearances. His first television performance as a star performer on the Max Liebman Show of Shows won him the television industry's coveted Emmy award. He appeared on the BBC as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol in 1973. He was a favorite guest of Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore, and he also had his own one-man show entitled "Meet Marcel Marceau."
He has also shown his versatility in motion pictures, such as First Class in which he portrayed 17 different roles, Shanks where he combined his silent art, playing a deaf and mute puppeteer, and his speaking talent, as a mad scientist, and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie (see below). A further example of Marceau's multiple talents was the mimodrama Candide, which he created for the Ballet company of the Hamburg Opera. He directed this work and also performed the title role.
Children have been delighted by his highly acclaimed Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book and Marcel Marceau Counting Book. Other publications of Marceau's poetry and illustrations include his La ballade de Paris et du Monde, which he wrote in 1966, and The Story of Bip, written and illustrated by Marceau and published by Harper and Row. In 1982 The Third Eye, his collection of ten lithographs, was published in Paris with an accompanying text by Marceau. Belfond of Paris published Pimporello in 1987.
The French Government has conferred upon Marceau its highest honor, making him an "Officier de la Legion d'Honneur," and in 1978 he received the Medaille Vermeil de la Ville de Paris. In November of 1998, President Chirac named Marceau a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit; and he is an 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. The City of Paris awarded him a grant, which enabled him to reopen his International School, which offers a three-year curriculum.
Marceau holds honorary doctorates from Ohio State University, Linfield College, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan - America's way of honoring Marceau's creation of a new art form, inherited from an old tradition.
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. Since 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 has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance with strong appeal to a third generation. He has recently appeared for extended engagements at such legendary American theaters as The Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA, and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, to overwhelming acclaim, demonstrating the timeless appeal of the work and the mastery of this unique artist.
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. That same year, 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. Marceau's new full company production Les Contes Fantastiques (Fantasy Tales) opened to great acclaim at the Theatre Antoine in Paris.
He was married three times and has four children. He is unrelated to Bond girl Sophie Marceau; both simply have selected the same stage name.
In 1947, he performed for the very first time as Bip The Clown, his tragicomic figure with silk dented hat and red flower, signifying the fragility of life. This has become his most famous character. In his career, he performed all over the world in order to spread the "art of silence" (L'art du silence).
He appeared in several films including the 1968 film Barbarella and appeared as himself to speak the only word ("Non") in the 1976 Mel Brooks comedy film, Silent Movie.
In 1978, he established his own school in Paris: "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 1982, Marceau's collection of original paintings "Le Troisième Oeil, (The Third Eye)" was published, accompanied by a poem of the same name, written by Marceau.
In 1995, famous postmodern artist Michael Jackson and his friend Marceau choreographed common concert for HBO, but the project was frozen at the stage of rehearsals, never being completed because of singer's illness at the time.
In 1999, the city of New York declared March 18 Marcel Marceau Day.
His last world tour covered the United States in 2004 and returned to Europe in 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Marceau
