published on in Trending

Marcel Marceaus Cause Of Death Bip The Clown Dead At 84

Marcel Marceau’s cause of death was disclosed soon after his death.

He passed away at age 84 on September 22, 2007, due to cardiac arrest while surrounded by his family at his retirement home in Cahors, France, where he had relocated after retiring from his career in 2005.

Although Marcel’s former assistant, Emmanuel Vacca, publicly confirmed his death later, no details were shared about his abrupt passing at the time. 

Some sources later reported that he died from a heart attack, but this news was not confirmed by his family.

Marcel’s unexpected death shocked his millions of fans, who expressed their condolences and paid tributes to him on various social media platforms. 

Moreover, many television personalities fondly remembered him in their interviews, and his admirers continue to appreciate his work to date.

Marcel is survived by his family. He was laid to rest at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. 

At his funeral, the second movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, which Marceau often used as an accompaniment to his elegant mime routine, was played, as was the sarabande of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5.

Marcel Marceau, the lithe French mime known for his character Bip The Clown, was renowned for his ability to communicate without words. His colleague, Quipping, once said of him, “Never get a mime talking. He won’t stop.”

As a French Jew, Marcel survived the atrocities of the Holocaust and even played a part in the French resistance, working to safeguard Jewish children.

Who Was Marcel Marceau? 

Marcel Marceau was a recognized French actor and mime artist. He performed in numerous Television programs. At the peak of his career, he introduced a unique brand of performance to the stage, which lasted for over a decade. 

He was best known for his on-stage performance “Bip The Clown.”3,000 soldiers witnessed Marceau’s first significant performance. Marceau studied dramatic art and mime in Paris after the war to continue pursuing his love of performing.

He attracted audiences all over the world with performances that were both beautiful and moving, and he swiftly gained notoriety for his distinctive manner.

Marceau participated in a great number of performances throughout his career, winning praise and admiration from all around the world for his mastery of the mime arts. Even now, young performers are still motivated and influenced by his legacy.

Marceau was five years old when his mother took him to see a Charlie Chaplin movie, which gave him the idea to become a mime. 

His first use of mime was to assist in the escape of Jewish children from Nazi-occupied France.

Marceau used his extraordinary talent to play pantomimes to keep the kids quiet during the most perilous sections of the journey to the Swiss border. 

During WWII, Marceau conducted three of these journeys and freed at least 70 kids.

Charles Mangel, Marceau’s father, was taken prisoner by the Gestapo in 1944 and died at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Marceau’s mother fortunately lived.

Marceau enrolled at the Charles Dullin School of Dramatic Art after the war in 1945. Later, he joined the company of Jean-Louis Barrault, where he was given the role of Arlequin in the pantomime Baptiste. 

His work in Baptiste received a lot of praise. His career as a mime soon took off after he performed his first “mimodrama,” Praxitele and the Golden Fish, at the Bernhardt Theatre.

The character for which Marceau would come to be most known, Bip The Clown, was conceived by him in 1947. Marceau dressed as Bip The Clown in a striped shirt, white face paint, and a scruffy tophat with a flower on top.

Marceau performed all over the world, developing the art of silence, with millions becoming familiar with the mime thanks to his various film and TV appearances. 

In 1973, he played Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. He earned an Emmy for Best Speciality Act for his 1956 performance on the Max Liebman Show of Shows.

His voice was heard on film for the first time in 1968 when he played the role of Professor Ping in Barbarella.

Marcel Marceau’s marriage life 

Marcel Marceau got married three times in his life. 

First and foremost, he married Huguette Mallet, and together the couple shares two sons, Michel and Baptiste. 

The couple had spent 8 years together but faced many ups and downs during their marriage life, and finally, they got separated and divorced in 1958. After their divorce, the late couple co-parented their children.

In 1966, Marcel married Ella Jaroszewicz, but they had no children together. Marcel became unlucky in his love life and divorced his second wife after living together for a few years.

After divorcing for a second time, he married his third wife, Anne Sicco, in 1975, with whom he welcomed two daughters, Camille and Aurelia. The couple got divorced later. 

Early Life 

Marcel Marceau was born to a Jewish family in Strasbourg, France, on March 22, 1923. 

His father, Charles Mangel, was originally from Będzin, Poland, and worked as a kosher butcher, while his mother, Anne Werzberg, hailed from Yabluniv, present-day Ukraine. The family moved to Lille at age four but later returned to Strasbourg. 

When Nazi forces occupied France in 1940, Marcel’s family was among the millions who were forced to flee their homes, eventually reaching Limoges.

On his arrival, Marcel’s cousin Georges Loinger saw potential in him and encouraged him to join the Organisation Juive de Combat-OJC (OJC), a secret organization of nine different networks, part of the French Jewish Resistance. 

OJC managed to save thousands of Jews throughout Europe by means of clandestine operations such as providing false identity papers or hiding children from non-Jewish families. 

Marcel, who was adept at impersonations, posed as an employee in a school directed by Yvonne Hagnauer; for his brave efforts during WWII rescuing members of the Jewish Community, he was honored with Yad Vashem’s recognition “Righteous Among The Nations.” 

Sadly, Marcel’s father wasn’t as fortunate: he was apprehended in 1944 and soon after deported to Auschwitz, where he lost his life. Despite this heartbreaking loss, Marcel’s mother survived.

Marcel Marceau was a French artist who marked his place in history as the most acclaimed mime artist of the 21st century.

During World War II, Marcel’s determination to keep living an authentic life led him to join a group of Jewish resistance fighters and smuggle children out of France. 

His time during the war profoundly affected his art, allowing him to become an internationally acclaimed artist when he emerged as one of the founders of modern mime.

His extraordinary depictions of everyday situations earned him many recognitions throughout his life, ultimately leading to his well-deserved acquisition of the title ‘Master of Mime.’

Unfortunately, after 84 years dedicated to bringing joy and beauty through art, Marcel tragically passed away in 2007 at age 84.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7t7XZmpqaZpOkunC5wKuanqRdoq6zr8SarGabkarApnnOn2SdnZGptXA%3D