Marcel Marceau born on 22 March 1923 and di*d on 22 September 2007 was a French actor and mime performer famous for his portrayal of “Bip the Clown”. He called mime the “art of quiet” and spent almost 60 years as a professional performer around the world.
After spending most of World War II in hiding with the French Resistance as a member of the Jewish community, he made his public debut in front of 3,000 soldiers after Paris was liberated in August. Upon returning from the war, he enrolled in a mime and theater school in Paris.
Who is in Marcel Marceau’s Family?
Marcel Marceau was born into a Jewish family in the French city of Strasbourg. His dad Charles Mangel originating from Bdzin, Poland, ran a kosher butcher shop. Anne Werzberg, his mother hailed from Yabluniv in what is now Ukraine.
He was a cousin of Yardena Arazi, an Israeli singer from his mother’s side. The family uprooted to Lille when Marcel was four years old, but eventually settled back in Strasbourg. Marcel, who was 17 at the time of the Nazi invasion of France, moved to Limoges with his family.
In order to aid in the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust his cousin Georges Loinger, a member of the French Jewish Resistance encouraged him to join. With its nine underground Jewish networks, the OJC helped save the lives of thousands of Jews in France during the Holocaust.
He attended classes at Yvonne Hagnauer’s house in the Paris suburbs under the guise of being an employee at the school she directed; Hagnauer would go on to be recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
His father was murder*d in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 after being seized by the Gestapo. His mother is still alive and well. In honor of the French Revolutionary general François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, Marcel and his older brother Alain took the surname “Marceau” during the Nazi occupation of France.
In Limoges, France, the two brothers joined the French Resistance. In the context of the Jewish Resistance in France, they saved a large number of youngsters from the race laws and concentration camps and then, upon the liberation of Paris, they enlisted in the French army.
Marceau was able to contribute to General George Patton’s Third Army in the role of liaison officer due to his ability in English, French and German. Marceau claims that his mother took him to see a Charlie Chaplin picture when he was five years old and that this experience inspired him to pursue a career in mime.
Who is Marcel Marceau’s Wife?
Marceau had two boys, Michel and Baptiste, with his first wife, Huguette Mallet. He later married Ella Jaroszewicz, but they had no children together. Anne Sicco was his third wife and they had two kids together; Camille and Aurélia.
Performer and mime artist Marcel & Me: A Memoir of Love, Passion and Illusion was published in August 2014 by Paulette Frankl, and it details her decades-long love with Marceau.
Further information about Marcel Marceau’s wife, dea†h and other topics can be found in the posts we’ve linked below:
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