French male stage actors

Charles_Deburau

Jean-Charles Deburau (February 15, 1829 – December 19, 1873) was an important French mime, the son and successor of the legendary Jean-Gaspard Deburau, who was immortalized as Baptiste the Pierrot in Marcel Carné's film Children of Paradise (1945). After his father's death in 1846, Charles kept alive his pantomimic legacy, first in Paris, at the Théâtre des Funambules, and then, beginning in the late 1850s, at theaters in Bordeaux and Marseille. He is routinely credited with founding a southern "school" of pantomime; indeed, he served as tutor to the Marseille mime Louis Rouffe, who, in turn, gave instruction to Séverin Cafferra, known simply as "Séverin". But their art was nourished by the work of other mimes, particularly of Charles's rival, Paul Legrand, and by earlier developments in nineteenth-century pantomime that were alien to the Deburaux' traditions.

Robert_Le_Vigan

Robert Le Vigan (born Robert Coquillaud, January 7, 1900 – October 12, 1972), was a French actor.
He appeared in more than 60 films between 1931 and 1943 almost exclusively in small or supporting roles. He was, according to film academic Ginette Vincendeau, a "brilliant, extravagant actor" who "specialised in louche, menacing or diabolical characters".A collaborator with the Nazis during the occupation, who openly expressed fascist attitudes, he vanished while playing Jéricho in Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis), a film deliberately released in May 1945 shortly after the liberation of Europe; Le Vigan was replaced by Pierre Renoir. He was sentenced to forced labour for 10 years in 1946. Released on parole after three years working in a camp, Le Vigan absconded to Spain, and then Argentina, dying there in poverty on October 12, 1972, in the city of Tandil.

Marcel_Herrand

Marcel Herrand (8 October 1897 – 11 June 1953) was a French stage and film actor best remembered for his roles in swashbuckling or historical films.
He appeared in over 25 films between 1932 and 1952, but Herrand's best remembered role is as Lacenaire (based on Pierre François Lacenaire) in Marcel Carné's Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis, 1945). Other films in which Herrand appeared include The Last Days of Pompeii (1950) and Fanfan la Tulipe (1952), which also featured Gérard Philipe and Gina Lollobrigida, in which Herrand played the role of Louis XV of France.

Jacques_François

Henri Jacques Daniel Paul François (16 May 1920 – 25 November 2003), known as Jacques François was a French actor. During a sixty-year career (1942–2002) he appeared in more than 120 films and over 30 stage productions. In 1948 he went to Hollywood with a view to playing the lead in Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, 1948) but the part went to Louis Jourdan. After appearing alongside Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as the playwright Jacques Pierre Barredout in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) he returned to France.François regularly dubbed Gregory Peck into French.
During World War II, he served as a captain in the French First Army under General de Lattre.

Jean_Dasté

Jean Dasté (born Jean Georges Gustave Dasté; 18 September 1904 – 15 October 1994) was a French actor and theatre director.
Although Jean Dasté is best known for his career on stage as both an actor and director in a variety of works including those by Shakespeare and Molière, he made his first appearance on screen in a 1932 Jean Renoir film (Boudu sauvé des eaux), and 57 years later appeared in his final film at the age of 85. He played also the main character in two Jean Vigo movies, L'Atalante and Zéro de conduite. Later, he worked also with Alain Resnais and François Truffaut.

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