Monday, September 24, 2007

Marcel Marceau, 1923-2007


Marcel Marceau, mime, dead at the age of 84. According to his AP obituary: "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 theatre at an early age. The boy adored the silent film stars of the era: Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Marx brothers."

Um, what? The Marx Brothers' first full-length film was The Cocoanuts, in 1929, a talkie, although they did make a silent two-reeler back in 1921 called Humor Risk, which was apparently screened once, in the Bronx, then never opened in wider release; it was so bad that Groucho allegedly destroyed the negative after that first screening. At any rate, Humor Risk is lost now, and it certainly never made its way to Strasbourg.

Marceau's dying words were: "..."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Those decades of practicing "Man Trapped in a Box" are all paying off now.