Alexandre Bisson
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
creator, and novelist. Born in Briouze
Briouze
Briouze is a commune in the Orne department of Normandy in north-western France. A small town of 1599 inhabitants in 2004, it is considered the capital of the "pays d'Houlme" at the western end of the Orne in the Norman bocage...
, Orne
Orne
Orne is a department in the northwest of France, named after the river Orne.- History :Orne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution, on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Normandy and Perche.- Geography :Orne is in the region of...
in Lower Normandy
Basse-Normandie
Lower Normandy is an administrative region of France. It was created in 1956, when the Normandy region was divided into Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy...
, he was successful in his native France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
as well as in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Remembered as a significant creator of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
ian vaudeville, in collaboration with Edmond Gondinet
Edmond Gondinet
Edmond Gondinet was a French playwright and librettist. This author, nearly forgotten today, produced forty plays of which several were successful...
, Bisson's 1881 three-act comedy "Un Voyage d'agrément" was performed at the Théâtre du Vaudeville
Théâtre du Vaudeville
The Théâtre du Vaudeville was a theatre in Paris. It opened on 12 January 1792 on rue de Chartres. Its directors, Piis and Barré, mainly put on "petites pièces mêlées de couplets sur des airs connus", including vaudevilles....
in Paris.
In 1892, the first of a Bisson's dozen plays came to New York City's
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
stage. Of his works, Bisson is best remembered for his play "Madame X" that was performed in 1910 both in Paris and on Broadway with Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
in the leading role. Over the years, the play would be revived for Broadway three times and nine Madame X motion pictures in several languages have been filmed. The first silent screen
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
adaptation was in 1916 and the latest in 2000. Better known versions include a 1929 "talkie" production starring Ruth Chatterton
Ruth Chatterton
Ruth Chatterton was an American actress, novelist, and early aviatrix.- Early life :Chatterton was born in New York City, on Christmas Eve 1892, to Walter Smith and Lillian Reed Chatterton...
and directed by Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...
plus the 1966 production starring Lana Turner
Lana Turner
Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...
. In 2006 a musical has been produced in Chicago, IL based on the original play "Madame X".
Bisson also adapted the 1910 bestselling Florence Barclay novel, The Rosary
The Rosary
The Rosary is a novel by Florence L. Barclay. It was first published in 1909 by G.P. Putnam's Sons and was a bestselling novel for many years running, reaching the number one spot in 1910. A recent edition published in 2002 has a new introduction by Sharon Rich and comments by Jeanette MacDonald...
as a three-act play for the Paris stage. Widely acclaimed in the United States, Alexandre Bisson was invited to write about the theatre by The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
and his articles The Dilemmas of the Theater and How the World Contributes to the American Stage were published in 1912.
Alexandre Bisson died in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1912 at the age of sixty-three.
Selected works for stage
- 1882: 115, Rue Pigalle
- 1886: Une Mission délicate
- 1886: Un Conseil judiciaire
- 1887: Ma gouvernante
- 1888: Les Surprises du divorce (with Antony Mars)
- 1892: Le Député de Bombignac)
- 1893: Le Veglione (le Bal masqué)) (with Albert CarréAlbert CarréAlbert Carré was a French theatre director, opera director, actor and librettist. He was the nephew of librettist Michel Carré and cousin of cinema director Michel Antoine Carré...
) - 1895: Monsieur le Directeur ! (with Fabrice Carré)
- 1896: Disparu !
- 1897: Jalouse
- 1897: La famille Pont-Biquet
- 1898: Feu Toupinel
- 1898: Le Contrôleur des wagons-lits
- 1900: Château historique !
- 1901: Le Bon juge
- 1907: Les Plumes du paon
- 1908: Madame X
- 1910: Nick Carter vs. FantômasFantômasFantômas is a fictional character created by French writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre .One of the most popular characters in the history of French crime fiction, Fantômas was created in 1911 and appeared in a total of 32 volumes written by the two collaborators, then a subsequent 11...
(with Guillaume Livet) (translated ISBN 978-1-934543-05-4)
Madame X adapations
- Madame X (1910 film)
- Madame X (1916 film)Madame X (1916 film)Madame X is a 1916 silent drama film directed by George F. Marion.-Plot:A woman is thrown out of her home by her jealous husband and sinks into depravity. Twenty years later, she finds herself accused of murder for saving her son, who does not know who she is...
- Madame X (1920 film)Madame X (1920 film)Madame X is a 1920 silent drama film directed by Frank Lloyd. A copy of this film survives at the George Eastman House.-Plot:A woman is thrown out of her home by her jealous husband and sinks into depravity. Twenty years later, she finds herself accused of murder for saving her son, who does not...
- Madame X (1929 film)Madame X (1929 film)Madame X is a 1929 drama film directed by Lionel Barrymore, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. Ruth Chatterton was nominated for Best Actress for her performance as a fallen woman.-Plot:...
- Madame X (1937 film)Madame X (1937 film)Madame X is a drama film, a sanitized remake of several Pre-Code films of the same name. It was directed by Sam Wood with additional direction by Gustav Machatý .-Plot:...
- Madame X (1952 film)
- Madame X (1954 film)Madame X (1954 film)Madame X , is a 1954 Greek drama film directed by Orestis Laskos.-Plot:A woman is thrown out of her home by her jealous husband and sinks into depravity. Twenty years later, she finds herself accused of murder for saving her son, who does not know who she is...
- Madame X (1966 film)Madame X (1966 film)Madame X is a 1966 drama film directed by David Lowell Rich and starring Lana Turner.-Plot:A lower class woman, Holly Parker , marries into the rich Anderson family. Her husband's mother looks down on her and keeps a watchful eye on her activities...
- Madame X (1981 film)Madame X (1981 film)-Plot:A woman is thrown out of her home by her jealous husband and sinks into depravity. Twenty years later, she finds herself accused of murder for saving her son, who does not know who she is. He finds himself defending her without knowing her background.-Cast:...
- Madame X (2000 film)
- The Trial of Madame XThe Trial of Madame XThe Trial of Madame X is a 1948 drama film directed by Paul England.-Plot:A woman is thrown out of her home by her jealous husband and sinks into depravity. Twenty years later, she finds herself accused of murder for saving her son, who does not know who she is...
, a 1948 film, based on the same story as the other Madame X films