At the age of 84 Marcel Marceau (and with him, Bip the Clown) has died.
For decades, Marceau epitomised his silent art, eliciting laughter and tears from audiences around the globe. His comic and tragic sketches appeal on a universal level, with each audience interpreting his performance in its own way.
"Mime, like music, knows neither borders nor nationalities," he once said. "If laughter and tears are the characteristics of humanity, all cultures are steeped in our discipline."
On stage, he charmed with his deft silent movements, a white-faced figure in white harlequin suit, striped jersey and battered top hat.
More than this like so many of his generation he was formed by the war. His father was taken hostage and killed by the Nazis and he and his elder brother joined with the Resistance later serving with the French Army and took part in the post-war occupation of Germany.
He took up acting and then mime after the war and perhaps the anguish he portrayed on stage and the insight into the human condition he expressed was a form of expiation for the horror and inhumanity of war and a Cri de Coeur against the inhumanity of totalitarianism.
Marceau famously appeared as a person refusing to appear (!) in Mel Brooks “Silent Movie. Mel phones Marcel Marceau in Paris who declines the offer, delivering the only line of dialogue in the film, in French: "Non!" When asked by the others what Marceau said, Funn explains he doesn't understand French.
Mel Funn: [seen as an insert title] Mr. Marceau, how would you like to appear in the first silent movie made in nearly fifty years?
Marcel Marceau: [the only spoken line in the film] Non!
Which is all very well but what I want to know about this great artist whose ambition was to capture the wind on stage is this; What were his last words?
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