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Early life and trainingMarcel Marceau was born in Strasbourg, France. At 15, his Jewish family was forced to flee their home when 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. 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.
Career and signature charactersIn 1947, Marceau created "Bip", the clown, who in his striped pullover and battered, beflowered silk opera hat — signifying the fragility of life — has become his alter-ego, even as Chaplin's "Little Tramp" became that star's major 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 cannot 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-Elysees, 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. World recognitionHe has performed all over the world in order to spread the "art of silence" (L'art du silence).
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 teamed with Red Skelton in three concerts of pantomimes. He has also shown his versatility in motion pictures such as First Class, in which he played 17 different 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 as himself in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie, in which he is the only actor with a speaking part, the single word "Non". 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. 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, one of his life-long friends that had gone to school with him, died halfway through shooting. 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, Le Troisième Oeil, (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 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 1995, vocalist and dancer Michael Jackson and Marceau choreographed a concert for HBO, but the project was frozen at the stage of rehearsals, never being completed because of the singer's illness at the time. 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 to overwhelming acclaim 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, 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 Theatre Antoine in Paris. Acclaim and honorsThe 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 Académie 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 1999, the city of New York declared March 18 Marcel Marceau Day. 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. Films
InfluenceMarceau's Creation of the World, a retelling of the first two chapters of Genesis is, in part, recreated by Axel Jodorowsky in Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1989 film Santa Sangre. Both father and son Jodorowsky had worked with Marceau.
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