He originally worked as a circus clown in Spain. He began his film career with short comedies for the French film companies Éclair and Pathé-Frères and has since appeared under the stage name Marcel Fabre. In 1910 Arturo Ambrosio hired him for his productions for the Italian film company Ambrosio in order to counter the competition between the comedies of Cines ( Ferdinand Guillaume as "Tontolini") and Itala ( André Deed as "Cretinetti"). Fabre was an actor and, in addition to Luigi Maggi, often also director in a series of short comedies. In it he played a clumsy guy named “Robinet” who was repeatedly involved in wild chases, but also - in this, like Max Linder - embodied the shameless libertine . The female film character "Robinette" played by Nilde Baracchi was regularly at his side . The international success of the "Robinet" series created independent names for the character of "Robinet" in other countries; so it was called "Nauke" in Germany and the Netherlands and "Tweedledum" in Great Britain and the USA. In 1913 Fabre shot the grotesque film Le avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola, based on a novel by Albert Robida , with Baracchi, which is now only fragmentarily preserved . During the First World War, Marcel Fabre left Italy and continued his career in the United States from 1916, also under the direction of the well-known comedy director William A. Seiter . With dwindling success, Marcel Fabre worked almost exclusively as a short comedy director and screenwriter in the 1920s.
