Pierre Richard-Willm | |
|---|---|
 Richard-Willm in 1941 | |
| Born | Alexandre-Pierre Richard 3 November 1895 Bayonne, France |
| Died | 12 April 1983 (aged 87) Paris, France |
| Occupation | actor, designer, sculptor |
| Website | richardwillm.free.fr/ |
Pierre Richard-Willm (3 November 1895 – 12 April 1983) was a French stage and film actor during the 1930s and 1940s. [1] [2]
Pierre Richard-Willm (originally Alexandre-Pierre Richard) was born in south-western France in the city of Bayonne. He was brought up at first in Barcelona and then, after the death of his mother Elisabeth-Fanny Willm, in Paris. [3] In 1916 he joined the army, and fought during World War I. [1]
After the war he became a sculptor, and in 1921 he started playing bit roles on stage. In 1924 he took part of in the sculpturing art competition of the Games of the VIII Olympiad, making a group of sculptures on rugby and skating. [4] [5]
In 1925 he was chosen by Ida Rubinstein to appear with her in a stage production of La Dame aux camélias at the Odéon in Paris, and other leading roles at that theatre followed. [6] His film debut came in Toute sa vie (1930, under the direction of Alberto Cavalcanti, and in 1934 he found one of his most successful film roles in Jacques Feyder's Le Grand Jeu . Throughout the 1930s he made several films each year, often appearing as military or aristocratic characters, and he became a very popular star despite feeling sometimes ill at ease with his romantic screen persona. [7]
One of Richard-Willm's frequent co-stars was Edwige Feuillère, and it was with her that he returned to the stage in Paris and on tour in La Dame aux Camélias in 1940/41. He also continued acting in films during World War II, including the role of Edmond Dantes in Le Comte de Monte-Cristo . [8]
In 1946 he decided to give up working in the cinema and he went to the Théâtre du Peuple in Bussang in the Vosges, a theatre with which he had maintained a close connection ever since his first visit there as a teenager in 1911. He became its artistic director from 1946 until 1971 and in numerous new productions he worked extensively on the design of sets and costumes. [6] [9] [10]
In 1975 Richard-Willm published his autobiography under the title Loin des étoiles. He died in Paris, and is buried at the cemetery in Bussang.
Yvonne Printemps was a French singer and actress who achieved stardom on stage and screen in France and internationally.
The Paris Opera Ballet is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded as one of the four most prominent ballet companies in the world, together with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, the Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg and the Royal Ballet in London.
La Dame aux Camélias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas fils. First published in 1848 and subsequently adapted by Dumas for the stage, the play premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France, on February 2, 1852. It was an instant success. Shortly thereafter, Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi set about putting the story to music in the 1853 opera La traviata, with female protagonist Marguerite Gautier renamed Violetta Valéry.
Pierre Fresnay was a French stage and film actor.
Marcel L'Herbier was a French filmmaker who achieved prominence as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner with a series of silent films in the 1920s. His career as a director continued until the 1950s and he made more than 40 feature films in total. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked on cultural programmes for French television. He also fulfilled many administrative roles in the French film industry, and he was the founder and the first President of the French film school Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC).
Raymond Bernard was a French film director and screenwriter whose career spanned more than 40 years. He is best remembered for several large-scale historical productions, including the silent films Le Miracle des loups and Le Joueur d'échecs and in the 1930s Les Croix de bois and a highly regarded adaptation of Les Misérables.
René Xavier Marie Alain Cuny was a French actor of stage and screen. He was closely linked with the works of Paul Claudel and Antonin Artaud, and for his performances for the Théâtre national populaire and Odéon-Théâtre de France.
Pierre Curzi is an actor, screenwriter and politician in Quebec. He is a former Member of the National Assembly of Quebec (MNA) for the riding of Borduas in the Montérégie region south of Montreal. Elected under the Parti Québécois (PQ) banner, he later sat as an independent.
Charles-Marie Vanel was a French actor and director. During his 76-year film career, which began in 1912, he appeared in more than 200 films and worked with many prominent directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel, Jacques Feyder, and Henri-Georges Clouzot. He is perhaps best remembered for his role as a desperate truck driver in Clouzot's The Wages of Fear for which he received a Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953.
Élisabeth Platel is a French prima ballerina.
Le Grand Jeu is a 1934 French film directed by Jacques Feyder. It is a romantic drama set against the background of the French Foreign Legion, and the film was an example of poetic realism in the French cinema. The title Le Grand Jeu refers to the practice of reading the cards. Blanche asks whether her client wants the 'full works', the whole story: "Alors... je te fais le grand jeu?"
Entente cordiale is a 1939 French drama film directed by Marcel L'Herbier and starring Gaby Morlay, Victor Francen and Pierre Richard-Willm. The film depicts events between the Fashoda crisis in 1898 and the 1904 signing of the Entente Cordiale creating an alliance between Britain and France and ending their historic rivalry. It was based on the book King Edward VII and His Times by André Maurois. It was made with an eye to its propaganda value, following the Munich Agreement of September 1938 and in anticipation of the outbreak of a Second World War which would test the bonds between Britain and France in a conflict with Nazi Germany.
Stéphane Bullion is a French Etoile dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet.
Henri Philippe Moïse Monteux was a French theatre and film actor, and an elder brother of the conductor Pierre Monteux. His family was descended from Sephardic Jews who settled in France.
Adolphe Guénée was a 19th-century French playwright.
Abuffard Eugène Augustin Woestyn was a 19th-century French playwright, librettist, poet, journalist, chansonnier and writer.
Charles-Amable Battaille was a French operatic bass. Appreciated both for his voice and his acting skills, he premiered the main bass roles for the works represented at the Opéra-Comique between 1848 and 1857, and is especially notable as the first singer of the role of Peter the Great in Meyerbeer's L'Étoile du nord (1854).
Valentine Colasante is a French ballet dancer. She is an étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet.
Ludmilla Pitoëff was a Russian-born French stage actress. She also appeared in London and New York, as well as in some films.
Nell Reymond was a French theatre, cinema and television actress and singer.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Biographical dictionaries | |
