Georges-Léon-Jules-Marie Feydeau was a French playwright of the Belle Époque era, remembered for his farces, written between 1886 and 1914.
A Shot in the Dark is a 1964 comedy film directed by Blake Edwards in Panavision. Produced as a standalone sequel to The Pink Panther, it is the second installment in the eponymous film series, with Peter Sellers reprising his role as Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the French Sûreté.
Douglas Coy Byng was an English comic singer and songwriter in West End theatre, revue and cabaret. Billed as "Bawdy but British", Byng was famous for his female impersonations. His songs are full of sexual innuendo and double entendres. Due to the prejudices of the law and of the public at that time, Byng was a closeted gay performer. To have been out, would have been social and professional suicide. He was noted for his camp performances in the music halls and in cabaret. Byng made a large number of recordings, many of which have been transferred to CD. Byng was also a noted pantomime dame and appeared in over 30 pantomimes.
Martita Edith Hunt was an Argentine-born British theatre and film actress. She had a dominant stage presence and played a wide range of powerful characters. She is best remembered for her performance as Miss Havisham in David Lean's Great Expectations (1946).
Jules Auguste Muraire, whose stage name was Raimu, was a French actor. He is most famous for playing César in the 'Marseilles trilogy'.
Peter Barnes was an English Olivier Award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His best known work is the play The Ruling Class, which was made into a 1972 film for which Peter O'Toole received an Oscar nomination.
Marius Re Goring was an English stage and screen actor. He is best remembered for the four films he made with Powell & Pressburger, particularly as Conductor 71 in A Matter of Life and Death and as Julian Craster in The Red Shoes. He is also known for playing the title role in the long-running TV drama series, The Expert. He regularly performed French and German roles, and was frequently cast in the latter because of his name, coupled with his red-gold hair and blue eyes. However, in a 1965 interview, he explained that he was not of German descent, stating that "Goring is a completely English name."
Peter Glenville was an English theatre and film director, and actor. He was a prominent director of stage plays on the West End and Broadway in the 1950's, where he was nominated for four Tony Awards, who later transitioned into films in the following decade. His first film, The Prisoner (1955), was nominated for Best Film and Best British Film at the 9th British Academy Film Awards.
The Comedians is a 1967 American political drama film directed and produced by Peter Glenville, based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Graham Greene, who also wrote the screenplay. The stars were Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Ustinov, and Alec Guinness. Paul Ford and Lillian Gish had supporting roles as a presidential candidate and wife, as did James Earl Jones as an island doctor. The role played by Elizabeth Taylor was originally intended for Sophia Loren.
Sanna-June Hyde is an English-Finnish actress.
Denise Rosemonde "Rosine" Delamare was a French costume designer. She was co-nominated for an Academy Award for her work on the film The Earrings of Madame de… (1953).
Sir Alec Guinness was an English actor. After an early career on the stage, Guinness was featured in several of the Ealing comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), in which he played eight different characters; The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination; and The Ladykillers (1955). He collaborated six times with director David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946); Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948); Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won both the Academy Award for Best Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor; Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962); General Yevgraf Zhivago in Doctor Zhivago (1965); and Professor Godbole in A Passage to India (1984). In 1970, he played Jacob Marley's ghost in Ronald Neame's Scrooge. He also portrayed Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas's original Star Wars trilogy; for the original 1977 film, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 50th Academy Awards.
L'Hôtel du Libre échange is a comedy written by the French playwrights Georges Feydeau and Maurice Desvallières in 1894. The play takes place in Paris in the 19th century, and follows two Parisian households and their friends over the course of two days. The play has three acts; acts one and three take place in Monsieur Pinglet's office, while act two takes place in Hôtel du Libre échange, a small Paris hotel. The play has been translated into several other languages.
Flare Path is a play by Terence Rattigan, written in 1941 and first staged in 1942. Set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command airbase during the Second World War, the story involves a love triangle between a pilot, his actress wife and a famous film star. The play is based in part on Rattigan's own wartime experiences, and was significantly reworked and adapted for film as The Way to the Stars.
A Night Out is a musical comedy with a book by George Grossmith, Jr. and Arthur Miller, music by Willie Redstone and Cole Porter and lyrics by Clifford Grey. The story is adapted from the 1894 French comedy L'Hôtel du libre échange by Georges Feydeau and Maurice Desvallières. The sculptor Pinglet gets an evening away from his domineering wife and dines with the attractive Marcelle Delavaux. After a series of coincidences and mix-ups, he manages the deception without suffering any adverse consequences.
Ernest George Maurice Lefebvre-Desvallières was a 19th–20th-century French playwright.
Monsieur chasse! is a three-act farce by Georges Feydeau, first produced in Paris in 1892. A married man disguises his absences conducting an extramarital affair in Paris as shooting trips in the country, but an evening's chaotic events expose his deception.
Georges Alain Thierry Feydeau was a French actor, director and writer. He was a grandson of the playwright Georges Feydeau, and appeared in several of his grandfather's works, and directed new productions of two of them.
Lucien Rozenberg was a French actor, theatre director, playwright and film director. He was principally known as a stage performer, but during the First World War he starred in a series of short comedy films, and in the 1930s returned to the screen in films by, among others, Abel Gance.
Hotel Free Exchange is a 1934 French comedy film directed by Marc Allégret and starring Fernandel, André Alerme and Ginette Leclerc. It is based on the 1894 play of the same title by Maurice Desvallières and Georges Feydeau, later remade as the 1966 British film Hotel Paradiso. It was shot at the Billancourt Studios in Paris. The film's sets were designed by the art director Lazare Meerson.
