Historical Figure
Marcel Marceau
1923–2007
French mime artist (1923–2007)
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Biography
Marcel Marceau was a French mime artist and actor most famous for his stage persona, "Bip the Clown". He referred to mime as the "art of silence", performing professionally worldwide for more than 60 years.
In Their Own Words (5)
Never get a mime talking. He won’t stop.
US News & World Report (23 February 1987) , 1987
In silence and movement you can show the reflection of people.
US News & World Report (23 February 1987) , 1987
Fathers, I do not practice. I’m not religious in life, but when I perform "The Creation of the World" and when my soul is touched by the confrontation of "Good and Evil", then God enters in me.
Interview The Lantern (5 April 2001) Replying to two priests who, after a performance of his routines of "The Creation of The World" and "The Hands of Good and Evil", asked if he was religious. , 2001
Chaplin made me laugh and cry without saying a word. I had an instinct. I was touched by the soul of Chaplin — Mime is not an imitator but a creator.
Interview, The Lantern (5 April 2001) , 2001
Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
As quoted in The Reader’s Digest (June 1958) , 1958
Timeline
The story of Marcel Marceau, told in moments.
Born Marcel Mangel in Strasbourg. His father was a kosher butcher who loved music. Marcel saw a Charlie Chaplin film at age five. He started imitating what he saw. He never really stopped.
Works with the French Resistance, helping Jewish children escape to Switzerland. He alters their identity papers, changing their ages. He entertains the children to keep them quiet during border crossings. His father dies at Auschwitz.
Creates "Bip the Clown," a white-faced character in a striped shirt and battered top hat. Bip doesn't speak. Bip fights the wind, walks against invisible walls, catches invisible butterflies. Marceau performs Bip for the next sixty years.
Tours the world to sold-out theaters performing solo. No set, no dialogue, no props. Just his body. He can make an audience see a room that isn't there. Michael Jackson studies his moonwalk technique. So does every street mime in every city.
Dies in Cahors, France. He was 84. His only spoken movie line was a single word: "Non!" in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. The world's greatest mime got the only speaking part.
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