Pierre Fresnay

Pierre Fresnay ( born April 4, 1897 in Ermont; † January 9, 1975 in Neuilly -sur -Seine, Hauts -de -Seine, actually Pierre Jules Louis Laudenbach ) was a French stage and film actor.

Life and work

Laudenbach was succeeded by his uncle, the theater actor Claude Garry, encouraged to pursue a career in theater and film. At the age of 14, he debuted under the pseudonym Pierre Vernet first time on a stage in 1915 was a member of the ensemble of the French national theater of the Comédie- Française, where he remained until 1926. At age 18, also followed his camera debut in Henri d' abord Pouctals France (1915 ), but it not then, he managed to take in the film business walk, so he devoted himself to the theater.

In the 1920s, he was a hot stage actor, who has worked sporadically in silent films. This changed radically in the 1930s with the advent of the talkies. At the age of 34 years Fresnay embodied in Marcel Pagnol, Marius (1931), the title character of the same name. This was his first starring role and also the first in a series of French films such as Fanny (1932 ), César ( 1936) Grand Illusion (1937 ), which made ​​him very popular and secured him a position in the French film. In 1934, he starred with Edna Best and Leslie Banks for the first time in an international film in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much.

During the German occupation of France Fresnay continued working as an actor for the film company Continental, which at that time was under German leadership. Movies as you were Six ( 1941), The Raven (1943) and created The journey into oblivion (1944). After the war, he was imprisoned for six weeks; his reputation began to decline. Although he still perceived film tasks, mostly in supporting roles, he could not build on the success of past times. With The sky is already sold out, he turned the early 1960s his last movie. Later he focused on theater work, interrupted for a few television productions in the 1970s.

Pierre Fresnay was married three times; in first marriage to Rachel Berendt, then with the actresses Berthe Bovy and Yvonne Printemps. He died at the age of 77 years in the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly -sur -Seine.