André Deed
André Deed (born February 22, 1879 in Le Havre as Henri André Augustin Chapais , † October 4, 1940 in Paris ) was a French film actor , screenwriter and director ; a pioneer from the dawn of European cinematography. He was the first silent film star in his country and - on a national level - even before Max Linder , the first star comedian in film history. He is considered the founder of star comedy , but his character Boireau (in contrast to Linder's somewhat later Max ) was not yet clearly defined in terms of character.
Life
Before the turn of the century, André Deed had established himself as a singer in the café concerts in Paris and as an acrobat in the Folies Bergère and in music halls such as the Châtelet before joining the film industry in 1901. With Georges Méliès , who strongly influenced Deed's later work, he appeared in tricky films such as Dislocation mystérieuse (1901) until 1904 .
The production company Pathé-Frères , to which he subsequently switched, built the aspiring artist into its top star in the first decade of the 20th century. He was first made popular by the character of Boireau , whom Deed embodied in an extremely successful short film series until the outbreak of World War I. The first film in this series was called Boireau déménage and was made in 1906 under the direction of Georges Hatot . Although the character was not clearly defined and could be seen as both a teenage and an adult bourgeoisie, Deed's somersaults and grimaces had one thing in common: a goofy, dreamy person who causes small disasters. Deed pioneered subsequent French comedians such as Clément Migé as Calino and Ernest Bourbon as Onésime .
Between 1909 and 1911 the artist interrupted his film work in Paris and at the instigation of Giovanni Pastrone went to the Itala film company in Turin. There he appeared under the name Cretinetti with a white suit, hat and stick in more than 90 Italian grotesque short films , some of which he directed himself. They became great international successes and from 1911 gave Itala the financial possibilities for larger productions. In German-speaking countries, Deed's film character was initially called Schafskopf , but then mainly called Müller . Other countries also gave Deed's film character a name that was adapted to the domestic tongue; in France it was now called Gribouille , in England Foolshead , in Spain and Portugal Toribio or Turibìo . Deed's partner in the Cretinetti films was Valentina Frascaroli , whom he later married (1918). In 1909 his probably best-known short film Cretinetti troppo bello was made .
In 1912 the comedian returned to France with Valentina Frascaroli, where he appeared in 50 other Boireau films for Pathé, directed by Henri Gambard . The first of these was programmatically entitled Gribouille redevient Boireau (literally translated: “Cretinetti becomes Boireau again”). Around 1914, Deed also wrote a number of scripts for this series. In 1915 Pastrone brought him back to Turin to revive the Cretinetti range . A handful of short films were made, as well as the feature- length film Cretinetti e gli stivali del brasilero , which was released in Italian cinemas in December 1916.
The First World War, as well as the international supremacy of American comedy that came about at the latest through the films of Charlie Chaplin , ultimately led to Deed's decline, and the once adored actor hardly received any more commissions. In the early 1920s he worked on a trilogy of SciFi- influenced comedies : Il documento umano (1920, lost), L'Uomo Meccanico (1921, only preserved as a fragment) and Lo strano amore di Mado (no longer realized). After that he only had small roles in a few French films until the sound film era and ended his career as a warehouse worker at the Pathé studios in Joinville-le-Pont .
When Deed died in 1940, he was completely forgotten. For a long time even the time of his death was unknown; The wrong date persisted on April 15, 1938.
Filmography
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literature
- Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 2: C - F. John Paddy Carstairs - Peter Fritz. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 327.
- Laurent Le Forestier Deed, André [Chapuis, André aka de Chapais, André] . In Richard Abel (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Early Cinema , New York 2010, pp. 168/169
Web links
- André Deed in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- L'uomo meccanico (detail)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Deed, André |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Chapais, Henri André Augustin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 22, 1879 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Le Havre |
| DATE OF DEATH | 4th October 1940 |
| Place of death | Paris |