Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau (1923 – 2007) was the world’s most famous mime, and his white-faced character, the melancholy vagabond Bip, became globally famous. Before fame, however, Marcel spent his teenage years during WWII hiding from the Nazis and fighting for the French Resistance. Marceau’s underground activities included the rescuing of numerous Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them to safety. He had aspired to become a mime ever since he first saw a Charlie Chaplain movie as a child. That talent came in handy to distract and quiet the tiny tots as he smuggled them past German guards and across the border to safety in Switzerland.
Born Marcel Mangel, the future star was 16 when WWII began. The following year, when the Nazis invaded and defeated France, Marceau’s father, a kosher butcher, had to hide the family’s Jewish origins and fled with his family to central France. Marcel’s father was captured, however, and sent to his death in Auschwitz. The teenager moved to Paris, and with forged identity papers in which he adopted the surname “Marceau” after a French Revolutionary War general, joined the Resistance.
After the Allies landed in France, he gave his first major performance before an audience of 3000 troops in recently-liberated Paris, after which he joined the Free French army for the remainder of the war. His talent for languages and near fluency in English and German led to his appointment as a liaison officer embedded with George Patton’s Third US Army.
After the war, Marcel Marceau went on to lead a long and eventful career. His accomplishments included winning an Emmy Award, and getting declared a national treasure in Japan notwithstanding that he was not Japanese. He also became a member of the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts, and forged a decades-long friendship with Michael Jackson, who borrowed some of Marceau’s moves in his dance routines.
