French broadcaster and critic Jacques Chancel joined the pr
aise: "He spoke in
silence. And what is amazing is that - while so many people speak and
manage to say nothing - for him it was the silence that brought a whole
melody of language."
Video report at The Telegraph
From the AP:
Marcel Marceau, Famed French Mime, Dies
By ANGELA DOLAND – 2 hours ago
PARIS (AP) — Marcel Marceau, whose lithe gestures and pliant facial
expressions revived the art of mime and brought poetry to silence, died
Saturday. He was 84.
Wearing white face paint, soft shoes and a
battered hat topped with a red flower, Marceau — notably through his
famed personnage Bip — played the entire range of human emotions
onstage for more than 50 years, never uttering a word. Offstage,
however, he was famously chatty. "Never get a mime talking. He won't
stop," he once said.
A French Jew, Marceau escaped deportation
during World War II — unlike his father, who died as Auschwitz — and
worked with the French Resistance to protect Jewish children.
His
biggest inspiration was Charlie Chaplin. Marceau, in turn, inspired
countless young performers — Michael Jackson borrowed his famous
"moonwalk" from a Marceau sketch, "Walking Against the Wind."
Marceau
performed tirelessly around the world until late in life, never losing
his agility, never going out of style. In one of his most poignant and
philosophical acts, "Youth, Maturity, Old Age, Death," he wordlessly
showed the passing of an entire life in just minutes.
"Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?" he once said.
Prime
Minister Francois Fillon praised Marceau as "the master," saying he had
the rare gift of "being able to communicate with each and everyone
beyond the barriers of language."
In recent decades, Marceau took
Bip from Mexico to China to Australia. He's also made film appearances.
The most famous was Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie": He had the only
speaking line, "Non!"
"France loses one of its most eminent ambassadors," President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement.
Marceau's former assistant, Emmanuel Vacca, announced the death on France-Info radio, but gave no details.
Marceau
was born Marcel Mangel on March 22, 1923, in Strasbourg, France. His
father Charles, a butcher who sang baritone, introduced his son to the
world of music and theater at an early age. The boy adored the silent
film stars of the era: Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx brothers.
When
the Germans marched into eastern France, he and his family were given
just hours to pack their bags. He fled to southwest France and changed
his last name to Marceau to hide his Jewish origins.
With his
brother Alain, Marceau became active in the French Resistance. Marceau
altered children's identity cards, changing their birth dates to trick
the Germans into thinking they were too young to be deported. Because
he spoke English, he was recruited to be a liaison officer with Gen.
George S. Patton's army.
In 1944, Marceau's father was sent to Auschwitz, where he died.
Later, he reflected on his father's death: "Yes, I cried for him."
But
he also thought of all the others killed: "Among those kids was maybe
an Einstein, a Mozart, somebody who (would have) found a cancer drug,"
he told reporters in 2000. "That is why we have a great responsibility.
Let us love one another."
When Paris was liberated, Marcel's life
as a performer began. He enrolled in Charles Dullin's School of
Dramatic Art, studying with the renowned mime Etienne Decroux.
On
a tiny stage at the Theatre de Poche, a smoke-filled Left Bank cabaret,
he sought to perfect the style of mime that would become his trademark.
Bip — Marceau's on-stage persona — was born.
Marceau
once said that Bip was his creator's alter ego, a sad-faced double
whose eyes lit up with
child-like wonder as he discovered the world.
Bip was a direct descendant of the 19th century harlequin, but his
clownish gestures, Marceau said, were inspired by Chaplin and Keaton.
Marceau likened his character to a modern-day Don Quixote, "alone in a fragile world filled with injustice and beauty."
Dressed
in a white sailor suit, a top hat — a red rose perched on top — Bip
chased butterflies and flirted at cocktail parties. He went to war and
ran a matrimonial service.
In one famous sketch, "Public Garden,"
Marceau played all the characters in a park, from little boys playing
ball to old women with knitting needles.
In 1949, Marceau's newly
formed mime troupe was the only one of its kind in Europe. But it was
only after a hugely successful tour across the United States in the
mid-1950s that Marceau received the acclaim that would make him an
international star.
Single-handedly, Marceau revived the art of mime.
"I
have a feeling that I did for mime what (Andres) Segovia did for the
guitar, what (Pablo) Casals did for the cello," he once told The
Associated Press in an interview.
As he aged, Marceau kept on performing at the same level, never losing the agility that made him famous.
"If
you stop at all when you are 70 or 80, you cannot go on," he told The
AP in an interview in 2003. "You have to keep working."
Funeral arrangements were not immediately known.
