50 Fun Facts About Marcel Marceau

What was Marceau's surname at birth?

He and his brother Alain adopted 'Marceau' during the German occupation of France.

In which French city was Marceau born in 1923?

His father was a kosher butcher from Poland and his mother came from what is now Ukraine.

What did Marceau call mime?

He said it 'speaks to the soul, like music, making comedy, tragedy, and romance'.

What was the name of Marceau's famous stage persona?

Bip became his alter ego just as the Little Tramp had been Chaplin's.

What did Bip wear on his head?

With his striped pullover, the outfit was meant to signify life's fragility.

Which film star, seen at age five, made Marceau want to become a mime?

He later said Chaplin seemed to be the only silent film actor who truly used mime.

For which cause did Marceau first use mime, according to his own account?

He helped smuggle children to Switzerland after France was invaded.

Which cousin, a Jewish Resistance member, urged Marceau to join the fight?

He rescued about 350 children and lived past a hundred.

What happened to Marceau's father in 1944?

Charles Mangel was seized by the Gestapo; Marcel's mother survived the war.

The surname Marceau was chosen in reference to a general of which conflict?

François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers was the revolutionary general in question.

With which US general's army did Marceau serve as a liaison officer after liberation?

He was fluent in English, French and German.

How large was the audience for Marceau's first major performance, in August 1944?

It came just after the liberation of Paris.

At whose School of Dramatic Art did Marceau enrol in 1945?

The school was housed in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris.

Which teacher of Marceau developed the style known as corporeal mime?

His pupils also included Jessica Lange; his early 'statuary mime' recalled Rodin.

In which pantomime, staged by Jean-Louis Barrault, was Marceau cast as Arlequin?

Barrault had played the piece's title mime in the film Les Enfants du Paradis.

What was Marceau's first 'mimodrama', presented at the Bernhardt Theatre?

Its unanimous acclaim established his career.

At which small Paris theatre did Marceau first play Bip in 1947?

The name means Pocket Theatre.

Which award, named for a 19th-century mime master, did Marceau win in 1949?

It was for his second mimodrama, Death before Dawn.

The 19th-century mime honoured by Marceau's 1949 award was famed for which stock character?

Deburau performed the role at the Théâtre des Funambules from 1816.

What was distinctive about the troupe Marceau founded in 1949?

It played the leading Paris theatres and playhouses across the globe.

Which Gogol story did Marceau adapt into a mimodrama that ran for a year from 1959?

It played at the Ambigu Théâtre in Paris.

Which of Marceau's routines has him pushed backwards by an imaginary gust?

He used the backslide, later called the moonwalk, in it from the 1940s onward.

Which routine sums up the ages of man in under two minutes?

A critic said he accomplished in two minutes what most novelists cannot do in volumes.

Where did Marceau make his North American debut, just before his 1955 US tour?

His New York run had to move from the Phoenix to the larger Barrymore Theater.

With which American comedian did Marceau team up for three concerts of pantomimes?

His one-man TV show was called 'Meet Marcel Marceau'.

Which character did Marceau play in the 1968 film Barbarella?

It was his first speaking role, alongside Jane Fonda.

How many roles did Marceau play in the 1970 film First Class?

It showcased his versatility on screen.

In the 1974 horror film Shanks, what is Malcolm Shanks able to do?

It was Marceau's first major film role and William Castle's last as director.

What single word does Marceau utter in Mel Brooks's Silent Movie?

His is the only audible speaking part in the film, refusing to appear when Brooks asks him.

Which routine does Marceau reprise in Silent Movie, with real props instead of imaginary?

The gag is that the door, wind and telephone are actual.

Which pop star said he used to sneak in to watch Marceau 'defy the laws of gravity'?

A joint HBO concert planned in 1995 was cancelled when Jackson was hospitalised during rehearsals.

In which year did Marceau open his first school, École Internationale de Mime, in Paris?

It lasted two years and taught fencing, acrobatics and ballet alongside mime.

Who awarded Marceau the Wallenberg Medal in 2001 for his wartime courage?

He also held honorary doctorates from Ohio State, Linfield, Princeton and Michigan.

Which US city declared 18 March 'Marcel Marceau Day' in 1999?

He returned there that year with his solo show after a 15-year absence.

For which UN gathering did Marceau serve as Goodwill Ambassador in Madrid in 2002?

It was the second such assembly.

What was the title of Marceau's mime company production brought to New York in 2000?

It had already played Paris, London, Tokyo, Taipei, Caracas and Munich.

How many times was Marceau married?

He had two sons with Huguette Mallet and two daughters with Anne Sicco.

In which French town did Marceau die in 2007?

He was 84 and living in a retirement home.

Which Mozart piece, long used in one of his routines, was played at Marceau's burial?

The sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite No. 5 was played too.

In which Paris cemetery is Marceau buried?

He shares it with Chopin, Molière and Oscar Wilde.

Who played Marceau in the 2020 film Resistance?

Jonathan Jakubowicz's film focuses on his Resistance years and features Klaus Barbie as the villain.

How did Resistance top the US box office on its March 2020 opening weekend?

The pandemic had closed almost every cinema in the country.

The Resistance cousin who recruited Marceau lived to what age?

He died in Paris in December 2018; his niece is Israeli singer Yardena Arazi.

Which Marcel Carné film features Jean-Louis Barrault as the 1830s mime Deburau?

Made under wartime conditions, it is set around the Funambules theatre in 1830s Paris.

Which Paris performer first fixed the modern mime image of a silent figure in whiteface?

He did it in the early 19th century; France listed mime as intangible cultural heritage in 2017.

What was the trade of Marceau's father, Charles Mangel?

He was originally from Będzin in Poland; the family moved to Lille when Marcel was four and later to England.

To which French city did the 17-year-old Marceau flee with his family after the Nazi invasion?

There he and his brother Alain joined the Resistance and rescued numerous Jewish children.

Which Israeli singer was Marceau's cousin through his mother's family?

His mother Anne Werzberg came from Yabluniv in present-day Ukraine.

Which two children's books did Marceau publish?

He also wrote the 1966 art book La ballade de Paris et du Monde and the illustrated story Pimporello, published in 1991.

Which French high-wire artist's 1985 book On the High Wire carries a preface by Marceau?

He also wrote the foreword to a 1993 book on mime by Stefan Niedziałkowski and Jonathan Winslow.