When was marcel marceau born

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. 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.

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 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 troops after liberation of Paris in August of In , 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 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.

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 In , 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 received great acclaim.

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.

Marcel Marceau, born March 22, in Strasbourg, France, became one of the most famous mimes in the world. He created his own school, Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau, in , for the development of the mime arts. Bip, was the white-faced character, based on the French Pierrot, he played on stage and screen. Mime artist. In he founded the Compagnie de Mime Marcel Marceau, developing the art of mime, becoming himself the leading exponent. His white-faced character, Bip, based on the 19th-c French Pierrot, a melancholy vagabond, is famous from his appearances on stage and television throughout the world.

Among the many original performances he has devised are the mime-drama Don Juan , and the ballet Candide In 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. By this time Marceau had attained fame beyond the confines of Paris and France. 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.

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.

He appeared in six feature films, among them Barbarella , Shanks , 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, performances in over a hundred countries. Marceau's original mime company disbanded in , but in the s 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 , and instructed students in the art of mime. 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….