Charles Prince
Charles Prince (born April 27, 1872 in Maisons-Laffitte as Charles Petitdemange , † July 18, 1933 in Paris ) was a French actor, comedian , director and screenwriter .
Career
Prince was born Charles Petitdemange on April 27, 1872 in Maisons-Laffitte in what was then the Seine-et-Oise department . His father, a major industrialist, was President of the Chamber of Commerce. He wanted to turn Charles into a merchant, but he was more drawn to the theater. In 1892, to the horror of his parents, he appeared for the first time as a salon humorist. He attended drama school and got under the pseudonym "Seigneur" smaller engagements at "La Bobinière" and "Tabarin". In 1896 he received an award for his performance in Molière's conceited sick , whereupon he was engaged under the stage name "Prince" at the "Odeon". From 1898 he turned to the vaudeville.
He had already gained quite a reputation when Pathé brought him to film in 1908. There Charles Prince became known as a comedian through the character "Rigadin". In this role he appeared in numerous silent slapstick comedies, for which he mostly wrote the scripts himself. In Germany the figure was called "Moritz", in England and America "Whiffles" and in Italy "Tartufini". In Russia it was known as "Prenz" (Пренц). His character was that of the shy lover, the clumsy youth, the unlucky one. His director on this series was Georges Monca.
In the years leading up to World War I, Prince was the second largest film star in France after Max Linder ; his “Rigadin” was laid out similarly to Linder's character “Max”: both were dandies from the “better circles” who constantly messed with the representatives of the authorities and got into love deals.
In some films, Prince highlighted issues of his time: In Moritz als Neger ( Rigadin nègre , 1910) a couple of a colored and a white person changes their skin colors and then also their prejudices. In Moritz as a modernist ( Rigadin Peintre Cubiste , 1912) he mocked modern art by appearing and the actors dressed in cubist cube-shaped cardboard costumes. In Moritz, working as a cinema operator in the Balkans ( Rigadin aux Balkans , 1912), he played a war photographer who prefers to falsify photos in safe Paris than to travel to the Balkans, where the war is taking place.
An example of how theater and film could be intertwined was the war revue Nouvelle Revue , which was played for the first time on October 6, 1915 in the Théâtre Antoine . In it, Prince alias Rigadin embodies both himself and a lawyer of the same name, who is offended by the fact that his name is being misused on movie posters; he goes to a performance and sees himself on screen. Maître Rigadin tries to get into conversation with the film character when she suddenly turns around on the screen and answers him. Maître Rigadin wants to respond to them and suddenly becomes part of the film himself.
As "Rigadin" Prince made over 200 short films between 1909 and 1920, but also appeared in other feature films and under other directors. He co-directed four films alongside Georges Monca, one of which he was both director and leading actor. In the aftermath of World War I, however, his popularity began to wane and he only got supporting roles in a few films during the 1920s and early 1930s. His last film was already a sound film: Der Regimentsgockel ( Le Coq du régiment , 1933), Maurice Cammages after André Mouëzy-Éon, Alfred Vercourt and Jean Bever filmed vaudeville militaire in three acts.
Prince died in Paris on July 18, 1933 at the age of 61 .
French director Cris Uberman is Prince's great-grandson.
Filmography (selection)
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literature
- Richard Abel: Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. Taylor & Francis Publisher, 2005. ISBN 9780415234405 .
- Richard Abel: The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914. University of California Press, 1998. ISBN 9780520912915 . Pp. 35, 49, 53, 180, 216, 236, 245, 388, 407, 453, 528
- François Albera: L'Avant-garde au cinéma. Armand Colin cinema. Armand Colin, 2005. ISBN 9782200260057 .
- Heinrich Fraenkel: Immortal Film. The great chronicle. From the magic lantern to the sound film. Part of the picture by Wilhelm Winckel. Kindler, Munich 1956, p. 262
- Ulrich Gregor, Enno Patalas: Geschichte des Films, Volume 1. Verlag Rowohlt, 1976. ISBN 9783499161933 , pp. 16, 244, 249
- Irene Rima Makaryk, Virlana Tkacz (eds.): Modernism in Kiev: Kyiv / Kyïv / Kiev / Kijów - Jubilant Experimentation. Illustrated edition. University of Toronto Press, 2010. ISBN 9781442640986 .
- Dayna Oscherwitz u. Mary Ellen Higgins: Historical Dictionary of French Cinema. Scarecrow Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0810854918 .
- Bernice Rose: [Pablo] Picasso, [Georges] Braque and early film in cubism; illustrated edition. Publisher: PaceWildenstein, 2007. ISBN 9781930743731 . Pp. 110, 112, 160
- Eric le Roy: Max Linder, the man in the silk hat. In: Mask and Kothurn. Volume 54, Issue 1–2, Pages 52–59, ISSN (Online) 2305-0667, ISSN (Print) 0025-4606, doi : 10.7767 / muk.2008.54.12.52 , June 2008
- Henri Schoenmakers (Ed.): Theater and Media: Fundamentals, Analyzes, Perspectives: An inventory of culture and media theory. Contributors: Society for Theater Studies. Congress, Institute for Theater and Media Studies (Erlangen, Germany). Publisher: transcript Verlag, 2008. ISBN 9783837610642 . Pp. 495-496 et al. Note 5 and 6th
- John Wakeman: World Film Directors, Volume 1: 1890-1945. Illustrated edition. The HW Wilson Company, 1987. ISBN 9780824207571 .
- Friedrich von Zglinicki: The way of the film. History of cinematography and its predecessors. Rembrandt Verlag, Berlin 1956. pp. 473, 477
Web links
- Charles Prince in the Internet Movie Database (English)
items
- Charles Prince at GECD as Cast Member (173 Films) , as Crew Member (3 Films)
- Paul Dubé et Jacques Marchioro: Prince (French)
- Didier Dupé: Quand Rigadin filmait ... Quand Mistinguett tournait ... (French)
Film samples
- Shy Moritz on YouTube ( Les timidités de Rigadin , 1910, viraged)
- Moritz and the doctor on YouTube ( Rigadin et la doctoresse , 1911)
Illustrations
- Photo "Mr.Prince"
- Photo by Prince / Rigadin
- Photo “Rigadin sings to the gramophone” (l'acteur comique Charles Petitdemange dit PRINCE puis RIGADIN)
- Photo by Mistinguett (1913)
- Photo by Max Linder (1912)
- Movie poster from Pathé with Prince / Rigadin
- Cinema poster "Rigadin et la petite Moulinet" , France 1913, designed by Adrien Barrère
- Movie poster "Le périscope de Rigadin" (1917)
- Still from “Rigadin Défenseur de la Vertu” (Moritz defends virtue) from 1912
- Still from “Rigadin Peintre Cubiste” (Moritz als Modernist) from 1913
- Still from “Rigadin Peintre Cubiste” (Moritz als Modernist) from 1913
- Still from “Les terreurs de Rigadin” (Moritz in distress) from 1913
Individual evidence
- ↑ choupanenette: Prince-Rigadin. In: Le blog du passé. July 16, 2010, accessed on July 16, 2014 (French): “Issu du théâtre (le cinéma n'existait pas encore), il joue tout le répertoire et se taille une belle réputation sur les scènes du Palais-Royal et des Variétés sous le pseudonyms de Prince. "
- ^ John Wakeman: World Film Directors, Volume 1, p. 676
- ↑ cf. Richard Abel: Encyclopedia of Early Cinema, p. 203
- ↑ cf. Friederike Steurenthaler (2012): Film star Asta Nielsen in Freiburg cinemas (1911-1914). Local analysis of a media upheaval : “Asta Nielsen is being advertised as a brand - compared to the main actress, the changing titles of her films take a back seat. The competing cinema companies respond by listing the names of authors (like Leo Tolstoy or Charles Decroix), of fictional characters like the detective Nick Winter or comedians like 'Max' (Max Linder) or 'Moritz' (Charles Prince) ... ”
- ↑ cf. Makary and Tkacz S. 149, there is a list of the way past Kiev 1910-1914 Rigadin / Prenz- shorts
- ^ Paul Dubé, Jacques Marchioro: Prince. In: Du Temps des cerises aux Feuilles mortes. May 13, 2013, accessed on July 16, 2014 (French): "Rigadin, c'est le malchanceux, le maladroit, celui qui arrive quand on ne l'attend plus ou qui arrive trop tard."
- ↑ Gregor / Patalas even see him as a kind of forerunner of Fernandel . (P. 16)
- ↑ Georges Monca, director, born in France in 1888, died there on January 15, 1940.
- ↑ cf. Eric le Roy 2008: “Rigadin was indeed a serious rival of Max Linder .... Calino became Piefke, Bébé became Fritzchen, Rigadin became Moritz”
- ↑ although Prince's character was more of a conventional clown and appeared less sophisticated than Linder's, cf. Snorre Mathiesen at IMDb / bio [1] : "Swedish film historian Rune Walderkrantz pointed out that Prince used less refined methods than Linder, being more of a clown in the traditional manner." Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins compare his comedy more with that of Romeo Bossetti and André Deed , cf. “Il est très populaire et ses niaiseries lourdes ont l'art d'amuser un public d'inconditionnel. Il joue les balourds, les jocrisses ou les ahuris avec un art consommé de l'outrance, faisant des yeux en bille de loto. "
- ^ Moritz as a negro (1910). In: The German Early Cinema Database. Retrieved July 16, 2014 .
- ↑ cf. Rose 2007: “... as a Pathe film of 1912, Rigadin, Le Peintre Cubiste, records, there is a reciprocal acknowledgment of Cubism in film culture. The actors in the short film are all dressed in cubic cardboard costumes based on a broad and literal reading of Cubist painting ... ” (p. 110) and Albera (p. 56)
- ↑ cf. Schoenmakers p. 496 and note 5
- ↑ “The series of Rigadin films directed by Georges Monca consists of a total of over 500 films that were immensely successful between 1908 and 1920, both in France and far beyond. In contrast to Max Linder, who has been rediscovered as a comedian of early cinema in recent years, Charles Prince alias Rigadin has so far hardly been properly appreciated ”, says Schoenmakers p. 496 in note 6
- ↑ urbanora: Slapstick, European-style - part 1. In: The Bioscope. September 7, 2007, accessed on July 16, 2014 (English): "He ended his film career playing small roles throughout the 1920s and 30s."
- ↑ Cris Ubermann Biography. In: International Movie Database. Retrieved on July 16, 2014 (English): "His great grandfather is a legendary French film actor Charles Prince."
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Prince, Charles |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Petitdemange, Charles (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 27, 1872 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Maisons-Laffitte |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 18, 1933 |
| Place of death | Paris |