48 Fun Facts About Marcel Marceau

What was Marceau's surname at birth?

Mangel: he and his brother Alain took the name Marceau in the Resistance to hide their Jewish origins, and he reached Paris on false identity papers.

In which French city was Marceau born in 1923?

Strasbourg sits on the German border, so when war broke out in 1939 the city was evacuated and his family, given only hours to pack, had to leave.

What did Marceau call mime?

The art of silence was his phrase for mime, yet offstage he was famously talkative, joking that you should never get a mime talking because he won't stop.

Marceau named his clown Bip after Pip, the hero of which Charles Dickens novel?

Great Expectations: Marceau went back to Dickens later, making a mime version of A Christmas Carol for BBC television.

What did Marceau's character Bip wear on his head?

A battered, flower-topped opera hat: with the white face beneath it, it became Marceau's trademark and one of the most familiar images of mime.

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

Charlie Chaplin: the boy copied him in his father's trousers and an inked moustache, and when they finally met at a Paris airport in 1967, Marceau kissed his idol's hand.

During the war, Marceau said he used mime for which purpose?

Keeping Jewish children quiet while escaping: his cousin, a Resistance commander, had him escort groups from an orphanage near Paris towards the frontier, passing them off as children going on holiday.

Marceau's cousin Georges Loinger got children out of occupied France by sending them to chase a ball into which country?

Switzerland: Loinger, the Resistance commander who recruited Marceau, also dressed children as mourners and sent them up a gravedigger's ladder at a cemetery beside the border.

What happened to Marceau's father in 1944?

Killed at Auschwitz after the Gestapo arrested him that year. Marceau later said that to cry for his father was to cry for the millions who died.

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

The French Revolution: François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers helped storm the Bastille as a young soldier, became a general at 24 and was shot dead in battle in Germany at 27.

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

George Patton: Marceau joined the French army after Paris was freed, and because he spoke English he was made a go-between with Patton's American troops.

Marceau's first big mime show, for 3,000 American soldiers, was praised by which US military publication?

Stars and Stripes gave the show a warm review, and he went on entertaining Allied troops in occupied Germany until he left the army in 1946.

Marceau studied drama in the Paris theatre named after which stage legend?

Sarah Bernhardt: Marceau enrolled at the school in her theatre meaning to become a speaking actor, until his mime teacher told him he was a born mime.

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

Étienne Decroux treated mime as research; Marceau broke with that vision and took the art to audiences around the world.

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.

Marceau forged identity cards in wartime France so that their holders appeared what?

Too young to be deported: he changed the birth dates on scores of cards, putting the drawing skills he had learned at art school to work for the Resistance.

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

Théâtre de Poche, the 'Pocket Theatre', saw Bip's debut on Marceau's 24th birthday, but wide fame came only with his American tour eight years later.

Marceau, born into a Jewish family, died in September 2007 on which holy day?

Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year: the man who had changed his name in wartime to hide his Jewish origins died on it.

Marceau's Bip was modelled partly on which stock character of old French pantomime?

Pierrot, the white-faced, lovelorn clown of the old Paris pantomime: with Bip, Marceau turned from his teacher's classicism back to that romantic spirit.

Marceau led groups of young refugees through the woods to the frontier while disguised as what?

A Boy Scout leader: he recalled putting his charges in scout uniform too, so the party passed for a troop on a hike until a guide took them across the border.

Which Gogol story did Marceau turn into a mimodrama in 1951?

The Overcoat: a poor clerk scrimps for years to buy a new coat, only to have it stolen. Marceau's staging was the hit that first carried his name well beyond France.

Marceau compared his hapless clown Bip to which dreamer of classic fiction?

Don Quixote: Marceau said Bip battles the windmills of life, a small figure alone in a world too big for him.

In Marceau's sketch Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death, how does the figure begin?

Curled up like an embryo: from there he unfolds, struts boldly through his prime, then crumples and knots himself into shrunken old age, a whole life in a few minutes.

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

Stratford Festival of Canada, in Ontario, came first. The American tour that followed went so well that he returned to the United States almost every year of his career.

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

Red Skelton and Marceau were friends for many years: Marceau guested on Skelton's television show and later joined him in the pantomime specials Skelton made for HBO.

In which science-fiction film of the 1960s did Marceau play Professor Ping?

Barbarella: the great mime actually speaks in it, eight years before his famous one-word turn in Silent Movie.

In 1956 the wordless Marceau beat Harry Belafonte and Sammy Davis Jr. to which American award?

An Emmy, for best specialty act: television appearances had made the French mime a familiar face across America within months of his first tour there.

In the 1974 horror film Shanks, what can Marceau's character do?

Move dead bodies like puppets: Marceau played two parts, the deaf-mute puppeteer Malcolm Shanks and the old scientist who teaches him the trick, and the scientist speaks.

What single word does Marceau utter in the 1976 comedy Silent Movie?

Non! is the only word spoken aloud in the whole film, so the single line in a silent movie goes to the world's most famous mime, turning down a part in it.

Marceau's first New York show in 1955 was booked for two weeks; what happened instead?

It transferred to Broadway: the reviews were raves, the two weeks stretched into months, and the mime went home to France an international star.

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.

Which future French president funded Marceau's mime school in 1978?

Jacques Chirac, then mayor of Paris, set up a city subsidy that let the school open, and twenty years later, as president, he decorated Marceau.

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

University of Michigan: Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who rescued tens of thousands of Jews in wartime Budapest, had studied architecture there in the 1930s.

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

New York gave him a day of his own, and he kept coming back: in his late seventies he brought the city his company's latest mimodrama, The Bowler Hat.

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

World Assembly on Aging: he was asked because, at 79, he was still touring the world.

Which director gave Marceau the only spoken word in his 1976 comedy Silent Movie?

Mel Brooks plays a has-been director trying to save a failing studio by signing big stars for a silent picture, and the only one to answer him out loud is the mime.

In one of Marceau's best-known sketches, what does Bip go out hunting?

Butterflies: the gentle sketch came from his early years, and his later pieces turned darker, to solitude, misery and war.

In which French town did Marceau die in 2007?

Cahors, in the south-west, is where he had settled after leaving the stage. Some early reports of his death said Paris, and some obituaries repeat it.

In which Paris cemetery is Marceau buried?

Père Lachaise: he died far from Paris, and his family brought him back to lie among France's most famous dead, Chopin and Oscar Wilde among them.

Who played Marceau in the 2020 film Resistance?

Jesse Eisenberg spent about six months learning mime for the part from a coach who had studied under Marceau himself at his Paris school.

Which real Nazi officer hunts Marceau in the 2020 film Resistance?

Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief in Lyon, is the film's villain, and in one tense scene he comes face to face with Marceau aboard a train bound for the frontier.

What stopped German captors realising Marceau's cousin Georges Loinger was Jewish?

His blond hair and blue eyes fooled the guards, so he was able to slip out of the prisoner-of-war camp, make his way back to France and join the Resistance.

Which Marcel Carné film stars Jean-Louis Barrault as a lovelorn mime in 1830s Paris?

Children of Paradise, shot under the German Occupation and released in 1945, soon gave Marceau his break: his first stage success was in a pantomime taken from the film.

Which top did Marceau's clown Bip always wear on stage?

A striped jersey over white trousers: thanks to Bip the outfit became the uniform of the mime, copied by street performers everywhere, to Marceau's frequent dismay.

What was the trade of Marceau's father?

Kosher butcher by trade, he also sang baritone, and it was he who introduced his son to music and the theatre at an early age.

In which French city did the young Marceau take refuge during the war and study art?

Limoges: he studied enamelling and ceramics, the crafts the city is famous for, at its school of decorative arts, and the Resistance soon found a use for his steady hand.

While hiding from the police in wartime, Marceau worked at an orphanage near Paris as what?

Drama teacher: a cousin placed him in the home at Sèvres when the police closed in, and its orphans became the first audience for his mime.

Marceau wrote the preface to On the High Wire, a 1985 book by which performer?

Philippe Petit, the Frenchman who walked a wire between the Twin Towers in 1974, wrote the book, with an afterword by the film director Werner Herzog.