17. Before He Became a Global Star, the World’s Most Famous Mime Fought in the Resistance
Marcel Marceau (1923 – 2007) became an international star as the world’s most famous mime. His white-faced character, the melancholy vagabond Bip, became globally famous from TV and stage appearances. Among many accomplishments in his long and eventful career, Marceau won an Emmy Award and got declared a national treasure in Japan despite the fact that he was not even Japanese. He was also admitted to the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts as a member, and became a decades-long friend of Michael Jackson. Indeed, the King of Pop borrowed some of Marceau’s moves and used them in his dance routines.
Before he became world-famous, however, Marceau spent most of the Second World War in hiding and working for the French Resistance. After the Allies landed in France in 1944, he gave his first major performance before an audience of 3000 troops in recently-liberated Paris. He then joined the Free French army for the remainder of the war. Marceau’s talent for languages and near fluency in English and German led to his appointment as a liaison officer with General George S. Patton’s Third US Army.
