Pierre Fresnay
Pierre Fresnay (4 April 1897 – 9 January 1975) was a French stage and film actor. Born Pierre Jules Louis Laudenbach in Paris, France, he was encouraged by his uncle, the actor Claude Garry, to pursue a career in theater and film. During the 1920s, Fresnay appeared in many popular stage productions, most notably in the title role of Marcel Pagnol’s Marius (1929), which ran for over 500 performances. His first great screen role was as Marius in the 1931 film adaptation of the play of the same name. He played the role again in the next two parts of Marcel Pagnol's Marseilles Trilogy, Fanny (1932) and César (1936). He appeared in more than sixty films, eight of which were with Yvonne Printemps, with whom he lived since 1934. In that same year, he appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. In 1937 he portrayed the aristocratic French military officer Captain de Boeldieu in Jean Renoir's masterpiece La Grande Illusion.
In 1947 he played Vincent de Paul (namesake of the Vincent de Paul Society) in Monsieur Vincent, for which he won the Coupe Volpi for best actor at the Venice Film Festival. He also portrayed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer in Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer (1952). [citation needed]
Soldier
A soldier in the French Army during World War I, he returned to his career a hero. However, under the German occupation of World War II, he worked for the Franco-German film company Continental, making Henri-Georges Clouzot's Le Corbeau and other films. After the war, he was detained in prison while allegations of collaboration were investigated. After being held for six weeks, he was released as a result of a lack of evidence. Despite Fresnay's declarations that he worked in films to help save the French film industry in a period of crisis, the move damaged his popularity with the public. [citation needed]
Last years/death
In 1954, he published his memoirs, Je suis comédien (Eng. I am an actor). Fresnay continued to perform regularly in film and on stage through to the 1960s. In the 70s, he appeared in a few films for television. From then on, he lived together with the French actress and singer Yvonne Printemps for the rest of his life, co-directing the Théâtre de la Michodière in Paris with her until his death in 1975.
He died of respiratory problems, aged 77, on 9 January 1975, at Neuilly-sur-Seine and is interred there alongside Printemps in the local cemetery. In his autobiography (My Name Escapes Me), Alec Guinness states that Fresnay was his favorite actor.[1]
Other
Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest "I think my name is to be pronounced fray-nay. At least, it is the way I pronounce it." (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.).
Selected filmography
Year | Title | Role | Director |
---|---|---|---|
1931 | Marius | Marius Olivier, César's son | Alexander Korda |
1932 | Fanny | Marius Olivier, César's son | Marc Allégret |
1934 | The Man Who Knew Too Much | Louis Bernard | Alfred Hitchcock |
1935 | Kœnigsmark | Raoul Vignerte, French teacher | Maurice Tourneur |
1936 | César | Marius Olivier, César's son | Marcel Pagnol |
1937 | Street of Shadows | Captain Georges Carrère | Georg Wilhelm Pabst |
La Grande Illusion | Captain Boeldieu | Jean Renoir | |
1938 | Adrienne Lecouvreur | Maurice de Saxe | Marcel L'Herbier |
1939 | Le Duel | Father Daniel Maurey | Pierre Fresnay himself |
1939 | La Charrette fantôme | David Holm | Julien Duvivier |
1942 | The Murderer Lives at Number 21 | "Monsieur Wens | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
1943 | Le Corbeau | Doctor Rémy Germain | Henri-Georges Clouzot |
1943 | La Main du diable | Roland Brissot | Maurice Tourneur |
1947 | Monsieur Vincent | Vincent de Paul | Maurice Cloche |
1949 | La Valse de Paris | Jacques Offenbach | Marcel Achard |
Vient de paraître | Moscat | Jacques Houssin | |
Au grand balcon | Gilbert Carbot | Henri Decoin | |
1950 | Justice Is Done | narrator | André Cayatte |
Dieu a besoin des hommes | Thomas Gourvennec | Jean Delannoy | |
1951 | Le Voyage en Amérique | Gaston Fournier | Henri Lavorel |
1953 | Napoleon Road | Édouard Martel | Jean Delannoy |
1954 | The Unfrocked One | Maurice Morand | Léo Joannon |
1955 | If All the Guys in the World | narrator | Christian Jaque |
1956 | The Hunchback of Notre Dame | narrator | Jean Delannoy |
1957 | Les Fanatiques | Luis Vargas | Alex Joffé |
References
- ↑ Guinness, Alec (1998) My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor, p.65, Penguin, ISBN 0140277455
External links
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