Marcel Marceau: is cause of death known, who was Bip the Clown - was 2020 film Resistance about him?

The 22 March Google Doodle marks what would have been the 100th birthday of the famous performer
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Today, Wednesday 22 March, the iconic Google Doodle is celebrating what would have been the 100th birthday of the famous French mime artist Marcel Marceau. He was born on this day in 1923, in Strasbourg, France, under the name Marcel Mangel.

This is everything you need to know about the mime.

Who was Marcel Marceau?

Marceau was born in Strasbourg, France, on 22 March 1923 to a Jewish family with the last name Mangel. After France was invaded by Nazi Germany, the mime adopted the name Marceau in order to avoid being identified as Jewish.

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When Marceau was five years old, he was inspired to join the world mime after his mother took him to see a Charlie Chaplin film. He first used mime to help smuggle Jewish children out of Nazi occupied France - using his talents, Marceau performed pantomimes to keep children quiet during the particularly dangerous moments during the journey to the Switzerland border. Marceau made three of these trips and liberated at least 70 children during WWII.

In 1944, Marceau’s father, Charles Mangel, was captured by the Gestapo and was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he was killed, however Marceau’s mother survived.

24th July 1972:  French mime artist Marcel Marceau on stage at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London.  (Photo by Mike Lawn/Fox Photos/Getty Images)24th July 1972:  French mime artist Marcel Marceau on stage at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London.  (Photo by Mike Lawn/Fox Photos/Getty Images)
24th July 1972: French mime artist Marcel Marceau on stage at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. (Photo by Mike Lawn/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

After the war ended in 1945, Marceau attended the Charles Dullin School of Dramatic Art and later joined Jean-Louis Barrault’s company where he was cast as Arlequin in the pantomime Baptiste. His performance in Baptiste garnered a lot of attention and after presenting his first “mimodrama”, Praxitele and the Golden Fish, at the Bernhardt Theatre, his career as a mime quickly took off.

It was in 1947 that Marceau created Bip the Clown, the character that he would become best known as. As Bip the Clown, Marceau wore a striped shirt, white face paint and a battered tophat with a flower in it.

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Marceau performed all over the world developing the art of silence, with millions becoming familiar with the mime thanks to various film and TV appearances. In 1973, he played Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, and later earned an Emmy for Best Speciality Act for his 1956 performance on the Max Liebman Show of Shows.

His voice was heard on film for the first time in 1968 in the role of Professor Ping in Barbarella.

Was he married - did he have children?

Over the course of his life, Marceau was married three times. His first marriage was to Huguette Mallet, with whom he had two sons, Michel and Baptiste. He and Mallet divorced in 1958 and, in 1966, he later married Ella Jaroszewicz - the couple had no children together.

After divorcing for a second time, he married his third wife Anne Sicco in 1975, with whom he welcomed two daughters, Camille and Aurelia. The couple later divorced.

French mime Marcel Marceau gestures prior to a press conference, 08 March 2005 in Caracas, Venezuela. (Photo: ANDREW ALVAREZ/AFP via Getty Images)French mime Marcel Marceau gestures prior to a press conference, 08 March 2005 in Caracas, Venezuela. (Photo: ANDREW ALVAREZ/AFP via Getty Images)
French mime Marcel Marceau gestures prior to a press conference, 08 March 2005 in Caracas, Venezuela. (Photo: ANDREW ALVAREZ/AFP via Getty Images)
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In 2014, Paulette Frankl released a memoir in which she chronicled her decades long relationship with Marceau, called Marcel & Me: A Memoir of Love, Lust, and Illusion.

Speaking to the Santa Fe Reporter about her first meeting with Marceau, Frankl said they met when she saw the mime performing in a nearby town. She said that she “could only afford the 26th row seat, which isn’t good for mime” but that she was still “absolutely slammed with the impact of his depth and the poetry of his movement - he was doing everything on an empty stage. No words, no costumes, no nothing”.

After bumping into Marceau after the show, Frankl said: “Marcel looked at me and said, “Ah, you are an artist, aren’t you?” and I thought, “How in hell’s name does he know that?” He looked at me, I looked at him and something connected.”

When did he die?

Marceau died on 22 September 2007 at the age of 84 in a retirement home in Cahors, France. His former assistant Emmanuel Vacca announced the news, sharing no specific details of his passing at the time, although some reports have claimed that the mime died of a heart attack.

Relatives attend the funeral of Marcel Marceau, the world-famous mime artist who died September 22, 2007, at the age of 84, at the Pere Lachaise cemetary on September 26, 2007 in Paris, France. (Photo by Francois Durand/Getty Images)Relatives attend the funeral of Marcel Marceau, the world-famous mime artist who died September 22, 2007, at the age of 84, at the Pere Lachaise cemetary on September 26, 2007 in Paris, France. (Photo by Francois Durand/Getty Images)
Relatives attend the funeral of Marcel Marceau, the world-famous mime artist who died September 22, 2007, at the age of 84, at the Pere Lachaise cemetary on September 26, 2007 in Paris, France. (Photo by Francois Durand/Getty Images)

He was buried at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Is the film Resistance about Marcel Marceau?

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The 2020 film Resistance, starring Jesse Eisenberg (Fleishman is in Trouble, The Social Network), Clemence Poesy (The Essex Serpent, The Tunnel), Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us, Game of Thrones) and Ed Harris (Westworld, The Lost Daughter), was a biographical film inspired by the life of Marceau.

Eisenberg, who plays Marceau, said in an interview with LA Weekly that the film was “an amazing story of an artist who becomes a reluctant hero under the most extreme circumstances”.

Jesse Eisenberg as Marcel Marceau in the 2020 film Resistance (Photo: Warner Bros)Jesse Eisenberg as Marcel Marceau in the 2020 film Resistance (Photo: Warner Bros)
Jesse Eisenberg as Marcel Marceau in the 2020 film Resistance (Photo: Warner Bros)

Speaking about the role, Eisenberg said: “My main challenge with this movie, obviously, was learning mime. I didn’t have to be as good as Marceau in his prime, but I had to be 1,000 times better than I initially was.

“I studied for about six months with this amazing choreographer Lorin Eric Salm, who studied with Marceau in Paris and has become a chronicler of his life. It was an amazing experience, learning about the history of mime while learning to perform.”

What’s the Google Doodle?

The Google Doodle celebrating Marceau featured an animated version of the mime pretending to pull and push an invisible box.

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