Pierre Étaix

Pierre Étaix

Pierre Étaix, 2011
Born (1928-11-23)23 November 1928
Roanne, France
Died 14 October 2016(2016-10-14) (aged 87)
Paris, France
Occupation Actor, director, clown
Years active 1954–2016
Spouse(s) Annie Violette Fratellini (m. 1969–97)

Pierre Étaix (French: [etɛks]; 23 November 1928 – 14 October 2016) was a French clown, comedian and filmmaker. Étaix made a series of short- and feature-length films in the 1960s,[1] many of them co-written by influential screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. He won an Academy Award for best live action short film in 1963. Due to a legal dispute with a distribution company, these films were unavailable for a long period.[2]

As an actor, assistant director and gag writer, Étaix worked with the likes of Jacques Tati, Robert Bresson, Nagisa Oshima, Otar Iosseliani and Jerry Lewis, the last of whom cast the comedian in his unreleased film The Day the Clown Cried.

Biography

Étaix was born in 1928 in Roanne, France. He was trained as a designer and introduced to the art of stained glass by Theodore Gerard Hanssen. Etaix basically built his career around the comic. He settled in Paris where he worked as an illustrator while performing in cabarets and music halls, including The Golden Horse, The Three Donkeys, ABC and the Alhambra, Bobino and Olympia, and that circus clown with Nino.

He met Jacques Tati in 1954 and worked as a draftsman and gagman on Tati's film Mon Oncle, including the creation of the poster, then as assistant director on the film (1958). He performed with his music-hall number, in 1960, in the sight of Jacques Tati: Feast Day at the Olympia. Pierre Étaix was a continuation of the great masters of slapstick (comedy film the silent era) as Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, Max Linder, Charlie Chaplin, and Laurel and Hardy admires limitless and that he graphically rendered many respects.

His apprenticeship with the comic Jacques Tati construction, proper motion, the quite naturally lead to the realization of his first short break, he co-authored with Jean-Claude Carrière. The day after the shooting of the film, Pierre Étaix presented his producer the idea of his second short film Happy birthday, also co-authored with Jean-Claude Carrière. The film won, among others, the Oscar for best short film in 1963.

He directed his first feature film The Suitor in 1963 and Yoyo in 1964, where he paid homage to the circus world that fascinated him forever. He then directed two feature films Until we health (1965), The Great Love (1968) he co-authored with Carrière.

Faced with the scarcity of French circus artists, Pierre Étaix decided to found the National Circus School (1973) with Annie Fratellini (married in 1969), and wore a white clown suit during tours of their own circus, having long played the tramp. Etaix died from complications of an intestinal infection on 14 October 2016 in Paris. He was 87.[3]

Awards

Filmography

As director

As actor

References

  1. ↑ Pierre Étaix Bio
  2. ↑ A Comic Tragedy
  3. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/movies/pierre-etaix-dead.html?action=click&contentCollection=obituaries&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0
  4. ↑ "3rd Moscow International Film Festival (1963)". MIFF. Retrieved 2012-12-01.
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