Pierre Batcheff

Pierre Batcheff (born June 23, 1901 in Harbin , Russian Empire , † April 12, 1932 in Paris , France ) was a French actor of Russian descent who was one of the stars of French cinema in the 1920s.

Life

Pierre Batcheff was born on June 23, 1901 (other sources name 1907 as the year of birth) in Harbin , a city in what is now China, then predominantly inhabited by Russians. The family soon moved to Riga and later to Saint Petersburg , where his sister was born. According to some sources, Pierre Batcheff's maiden name was Pyotr Batschew , according to other sources Benjamin Batschew .

In 1914, after the outbreak of World War I , the family settled in Geneva , in French-speaking Switzerland , where Batcheff was part of Georges Pitoëff's theater group for a time. From 1921 he lived in Paris with his mother, sister and aunt . There he began to work as a theater actor until he appeared in his first films from 1923. Batcheff's rise to a sought-after film actor soon began, so that he was one of the young stars of French film from the mid-1920s. He soon socialized in intellectual and artistic circles.

His greatest successes included the comedy The Shy Two, directed by René Clair, and the surrealist film An Andalusian Dog by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí . In 1930 he married the film producer Denise Tual , with whom he had already been in a relationship.

Batcheff also played in the German production Mitternachtsliebe by Carl Froelich and Augusto Genina , published in 1931 .

The films in which he starred from the 1930s, however, only achieved mediocre reviews in some cases. The extravagant, strenuous lifestyle of a star also left its mark on Batcheff, whose health was deteriorating increasingly. In 1932, Batcheff committed suicide by giving himself an overdose of veronal .

Filmography

1923: Claudine et le poussin
1924: Princesse Lulu
1925: Autour d'un berceau
1925: Le Double Amour
1926: Le Secret d'une mère
1926: The two lives of Mathias Pascal (Feu Mathias Pascal)
1927: Education de prince
1927: En rade
1927: The chess player (Le joueur d'échecs)
1927: Napoleon (Napoléon)
1928: The two shy ones (Les deux timides)
1929: Monte Cristo (Monte-Cristo)
1929: An Andalusian dog (Un chien andalou)
1930: Le rebelle
1930: Le roi de Paris
1931: Baroud
1931: midnight love
1932: Une nuit à Monte-Carlo

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Phil Powrie, Éric Rebillard: Pierre Batcheff and Stardom in 1920s French Cinema. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2009, ISBN 978-0-7486-2197-2 .

personal data
SURNAME	Batcheff, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French actor
DATE OF BIRTH	June 23, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH	Harbin , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH	April 12, 1932
Place of death	Paris , France

[1] Phil Powrie, Éric Rebillard: Pierre Batcheff and Stardom in 1920s French Cinema. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2009, ISBN 978-0-7486-2197-2 .