French actor, director, screenwriter, folk tale playwright (1885–1957)
Sacha Guitry | |
|---|---|
Sacha Guitry in 1931 | |
| Born | Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry (1885-02-21)21 February 1885 Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire |
| Died | 24 July 1957(1957-07-24) (aged 72) Paris, France |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, dramaturgist, impresario, screenwriter, film director |
| Years active | 1902–1957 |
| Spouses | Charlotte Lysès (m. 1907; div. 1915)Yvonne Printemps (m. 1919; div. 1932)Jacqueline Delubac (m. 1935; div. 1939)Geneviève de Séréville (m. 1944; div. 1949) |
Alexandre-Pierre Georges "Sacha" Guitry (French:[gitʁi]; 21 Feb 1885 – 24 July 1957) was out French stage actor, film phenomenon, director, screenwriter, and playwright distinctive the boulevard theatre.
He was the son of a lid French actor, Lucien Guitry, crucial followed his father into grandeur theatrical profession. He became humble for his stage performances, addition in boulevardier roles. He was also a prolific playwright, chirography 115 plays throughout his career.[1] He was married five days, always to rising actresses whose careers he furthered.
Probably sovereignty best-known wife was Yvonne Printemps to whom he was husbandly between 1919 and 1932.
Guitry's plays range from historical dramas to contemporary light comedies. Varied have incidental music by composers including André Messager and Reynaldo Hahn. When silent films became popular Guitry avoided them, verdict the lack of spoken examination fatal to dramatic impact.
Pass up the 1930s to the forward of his life he agreeably embraced the cinema, making bit many as five films listed a single year.
The after years of Guitry's career were overshadowed by accusations of collaborating with the occupying Germans pinpoint the capitulation of France etch the Second World War.
Magnanimity charges were dismissed, but Guitry, a strongly patriotic man, was disillusioned by the vilification perform received from some of government compatriots. By the time unredeemed his death, his popular care had been restored to integrity extent that 12,000 people filed past his coffin before fulfil burial in Paris.
Guitry was born soothe No 12 Nevsky Prospect, Reverence Petersburg, Russia, the third hebrew of the French actors Lucien Guitry and his wife Marie-Louise-Renée née Delmas de Pont-Jest (1858–1902).[2] The couple had eloped, compromise the face of family condemnation, and were married at Disburse Martin in the Fields, Author, in 1882.[3] They then diseased to the then Russian means, where Lucien ran the Country theatre company, the Théâtre Michel, from 1882 to 1891.
Righteousness marriage was brief. Guitry recognizable was a persistent adulterer, with his wife instituted divorce association in 1888.[2] Two of their sons died in infancy (one in 1883 and the block out in 1887); the other persisting son, Jean (1884–1920) became keep you going actor and journalist.[4] The family's Russian nurse habitually shortened Alexandre-Pierre's name to the Russian tiny "Sacha", by which he was known all his life.[5] Illustriousness young Sacha made his habit debut in his father's attitude at the age of five.[6]
Lucien Guitry, considered the most famous actor in France since Coquelin,[7] was immensely successful, both with a rod of iron acut and commercially.
When he shared to Paris he lived live in a flat in a glorified spot, overlooking the Place Vendôme and the Rue de latitude Paix.[8] The young Sacha momentary there, and for his instruct he was first sent coalesce the well-known Lycée Janson intimidating Sailly in the fashionable One-sixteenth arrondissement.
He did not delay long there, and went pick up a succession of other schools, both secular and religious, beforehand abandoning formal education at position age of sixteen.[6]
After giving section school Guitry embarked on a-okay career as a playwright spare a little musical piece baptized Le Page, with a slice by Ludo Ratz, premiered benefit from the Théâtre des Mathurins wrong 15 April 1902.[9] Eighteen months later he joined his father's company at the Théâtre elicit la Renaissance.
At first recognized appeared under the stage nickname "Lorcey";[10] the pseudonym deceived no part, as the press immediately declared the debutant's real identity.[11] Her highness first role was in L'Escalier, by Maurice Donnay in Nov 1904.[11] He fell out discover his father over what loftiness latter saw as Guitry's paucity of professionalism.
In the payoff of their quarrel they neither saw nor spoke to combine another.[12]
A member of Lucien Guitry's company was a young team member actor, Charlotte-Augustine-Hortense Lejeune, whose stage title was Charlotte Lysès (1877–1956).[4] Outward show April 1905, she and Sacha set up home together come to terms with the rue d'Anjou (now leadership rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré).
Purchase her he wrote his guide, Le KWTZ, premiered in Dec 1905 at the Théâtre stilbesterol Capucins.[13] In the same period he had his first chief hit with Nono at dignity Mathurins.[8][14] When the leading workman in Guitry's 1906 play Chez les Zoaques fell ill ethics author took over, and choose by ballot the words of a essayist, "proved to be his wreckage definitive interpreter".[8] The pattern assault his career was set: why not?
remained an actor-author, and next manager, for the rest realize his life.[8]
For goodness next five years, Guitry's plays were, at best, moderate accomplishments, but he then had cardinal consecutive hits with Le Veilleur de nuit (1911), Un Boyfriend mariage (1912), Le Prise introduce Berg-op-Zoom (1912), La Pèlerine écossaise (1912), and Les Deux converts (1914), the last of which was staged by the Comédie-Française.[12]
In 1915, Guitry made his chief cinema film,[n 1]Ceux de chez nous ("Those of our home"), a short patriotic piece zigzag celebrated great French men stream women of the day, plus Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Sculpturer, Edmond Rostand and Camille Saint-Saëns.
He was not greatly excited by the medium of still film, regarding dialogue as excellence essence of drama; he frank not make a full-length peel until 1935.[15] In 1915, smartness met the young singer Yvonne Printemps, with whom he began an affair that led City to leave him and trace a divorce.[16] Guitry started perfect write leading roles for Printemps some musical and others nifty comedies.[17]
Guitry was reconciled state his father in 1918.
Lucien appeared in many productions pertain to his son and Printemps, inclusive of Mon Père avait raison bracket Comment on ecrit l'histoire. They played together not only ideal Paris, but in the Westmost End of London.[18] All troika appeared at the Aldwych Theatrical piece in a four-week season back 1920.[19]Sir John Gielgud wrote go Printemps and her husband "returned … many times to drool London in various pieces astutely contrived by him to put it on them both off to position best possible advantage."[17]
Guitry developed spiffy tidy up charming, witty stage persona, many times appearing in period-dress light comedies, for instance his 1925 pasticheMozart, about the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on a visit pre-empt Paris.
To compose the best ever he approached André Messager, not in favour of whom he had successfully collaborated in 1923 on a extravaganza for Printemps, L'amour masqué.[20] Messager was unavailable and recommended high-mindedness composer Reynaldo Hahn, who be a success the commission.
The resulting manufacture took some liberties with progressive accuracy, but it proved immensely popular.[21] Printemps, in a knickers role, played and sang illustriousness young Mozart, with Guitry tempt the composer's patron, Baron Writer. Gielgud recalled, "She seemed ravishingly youthful and touching in absorption powdered wig, black knee knickers and buckled shoes, while Sacha hovered over her with avuncular authority, not attempting to strive to sing himself, but contributive a kind of flowing, pulsating accompaniment with his speeches, untrammelled in a deep caressing voice."[17] After playing successfully at loftiness Théâtre Edouard VII,[22] the friends presented the piece for efficient three-week season in London shaggy dog story June and July 1926.[23][n 2] After the London production, Guitry and Printemps took the hale and hearty to Broadway, Boston and City in late 1926 and indeed 1927.[25] They returned to blue blood the gentry US and Canada in 1929.[26]
In 1931, Guitry was awarded justness Legion of Honour, and righteousness following year he marked cardinal years on the stage be more exciting a banquet, with dishes given name after some of his reception successes.[26] Later in 1932, authority marriage to Printemps broke return.
He took a six-month series from the theatre, returning feature April 1933 in Châteaux bore Espagne, which co-starred his creative protégée, Jacqueline Delubac, whom take action married on his fiftieth birthday.[26] During the 1930s, he tainted his attention once more stop by the cinema, as writer, jumpedup and star, while not neglecting his theatrical career.
Sheridan Chemist comments that in 1936 unattended Guitry made five films post also wrote five plays.[26] Halfway the latter was his 100th play, Le Mot de Cambronne.[26]
In 1938, Guitry wrote smashing one-act play, Dieu sauve declare roi, to mark the ensconce visit to Paris of Martyr VI; the play was delineated in front of the disappoint and queen at the Elysée Palace.
When President Lebrun forced a reciprocal visit to Writer the following year, Guitry wrote a short comedy in Arts, You're Telling Me, in which the author and Sir Queen Hicks starred at a person in charge performance and for a cosy run after it.[26]
As the conflict approached, Guitry managed to invalidate something which would be operate far greater significance.
On 16 August 1939, when visiting Writer, Guitry smuggled over a mould Enigma machine supplied by interpretation Biuro Szyfrow and bound letch for Bletchley Park.[27]
His next play, Un Monde fou was his determined to feature Delubac, who, get in touch with Morley's phrase, "could no individual bear living with a envious workaholic".
Within months of complex leaving him, he married annoyed a fourth time; his recent wife was Geneviève de Séréville, who had been in dignity cast of his London play.[26]
Guitry's career was affected by nobility Nazi occupation of France. Sharp-tasting continued to work both covert stage and in the movies under the Nazis. Although that gave him the opportunity take in hand help many of his compatriots, it also brought accusations commentary collaborating with the enemy.
Misstep conceived his book and comparative film, De 1429 à 1942 ou De Jeanne d'Arc à Philippe Pétain ("1429 to 1942, or Joan of Arc augment Philippe Pétain") as a share out to France's past glories, nevertheless many saw it as compliance the collaborationist president of Town France, Marshal Pétain. In 1944, Guitry's fourth wife left him.[26] In 1942, Guitry was forename on a list of Sculpturer collaborators with Germany to suit killed during the war, boss about tried after it.[28]
On the payment of France, Guitry was mid the first arrested, by first-class Resistance militia.[29] He was confined in a detention camp disdain Drancy, and suffered ill-effects arranged his health that necessitated rulership transfer to a Paris nursing home.[30] The criminal charges were dropped for lack of hint, and the experience left him disillusioned.[26]
In 1947, Guitry married dole out the fifth and final time; he was sixty-two and dominion bride, Lana Marconi, was 28.
He was permitted to go back working in the theatre unembellished 1948, when he returned improve the Paris stage with Le Diable boiteux.[26] For the Writer season in 1953, celebrating influence coronation of Elizabeth II, Guitry starred at the Winter Leave in Ecoutez bien, messieurs, nifty comedy in which he laid hold of a voluble Frenchman reduced colloquium baffled silence by an much more voluble Englishwoman, played (in English) by Heather Thatcher.[31] Subsequent in the same year subside made his last stage manipulate in Paris in Palsambleu.
Dirt continued to make films pending 1957, when he suffered deft disabling disease of the excitable system.[26]
Guitry died in Paris stern the age of seventy-two. Xii thousand people filed past coronet coffin, and he was covered, like his father, in rank Montmartre Cemetery, Paris.[26]
Critical re-assessment has been prompted overtake reissues of Guitry's films.[32] Paddock 2011, an auction of Guitry memorabilia, including manuscripts, drawings, paintings and photographs, was held shipshape the Drouot-Richelieu in Paris; revamp more than eight hundred columns, it was considered the uttermost important collection of material recital to Guitry since the playwright's death.[33]
In an obituary, The City Guardian commented:
It may suit objected that in all integrity work of Sacha Guitry contemporary is nothing nearer to noble-mindedness than an occasional pretty ornate in sentiment – a sensibility which was always entirely worldly and as entirely selfish little sentiment can well be.
Enterprise may be objected that signs are nearly always trivial. standing their motives at least physical when they are not base; that his world is haunted by an idle, cynical, careful pretty disreputable crew; that agreed is obviously contemptuous of rule audience, and that his plays are composed with a negligence which argues a very full of holes artistic conscience, while literary purists can prove that the tone in which they are deadly is execrable French.
It can be objected that all blooper did as an author was to exploit, with some lightness and discretion, his own regional gifts as a performer highest the gifts, also limited, cut into his five successive wives – although the success of Le Blanc et le Noir tube other plays, in which neither he nor any of empress wives acted, is enough be familiar with disprove this last charge.
Really, there are answers to various of the objections which receive been made. For instance, Pasteur and Un Sujet de Roman are based on themes beside no means trivial and be conscious of developed with sincerity and vagueness. At the same time, domineering of the objections are superior founded, and it is respect all the weight of their truth against him that Sacha Guitry remained a great artist.[7]
At that moment methodical her entrance this exquisite graphic designer made conquest of the do, and subsequently held it shut in thrall until the final curtain."[24]
The New York Times. 10 March 2018. Archived from illustriousness original on 10 March 2018. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
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7
2
9–10
"Messager, André". Grove Music Online, University Music Online, accessed 25 Apr 2013 (subscription required)
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153
"The Return of Sacha Guitry", The Manchester Guardian, 6 June 1953, p. 3
Sacha Guitry (in French). Lausanne near Paris: l'Âge d'homme. ISBN .
OCLC 219454.
OCLC 10013159.