Silvia Monfort
Encyclopedia
Silvia Monfort (born Silvia Favre-Bertin; 6 June 1923, Paris–30 March 1991, Paris) was a French actress and theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
director. Daughter of the sculptor Charles Favre-Bertin and wife of Pierre Gruneberg.
She was named Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1973, Officer of Arts and Letters
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
in 1979 and then Commander of Arts and Letters
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
in 1983. She is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
A precocious vocation
She was born in the neighborhood of Le MaraisLe Marais
Le Marais is a historic district in Paris, France. Long the aristocratic district of Paris, it hosts many outstanding buildings of historic and architectural importance...
, on Rue Elzévir, a short distance away from Rue de Thorigny, where she would set up her first theatre much later. Her family had lived in this Parisian neighborhood for seven generations. She lost her mother very early and her father put her in a boarding school. She undertook her secondary studies first at lycée
Secondary education in France
In France, secondary education is in two stages:* collèges cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 14...
Victor Hugo and then at lycée Victor Duruy. She obtained her baccalauréat
Baccalauréat
The baccalauréat , often known in France colloquially as le bac, is an academic qualification which French and international students take at the end of the lycée . It was introduced by Napoleon I in 1808. It is the main diploma required to pursue university studies...
at 14½ with special permission. Her father had intended for her career to be spent at the Gobelin manufactory
Gobelin
Gobelin was the name of a family of dyers, who in all probability came originally from Reims, and who in the middle of the 15th century established themselves in the Faubourg Saint Marcel, Paris, on the banks of the Bièvre....
but she preferred the theatre and took classes with Jean Hervé and Jean Valcourt.
In 1939, aged 16, she met Maurice Clavel
Maurice Clavel
Maurice Clavel is a French writer, journalist and philosopher born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins .-Youth:...
, who directed the Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
network in Eure-et-Loir
Eure-et-Loir
Eure-et-Loir is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers.-History:Eure-et-Loir is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790 pursuant to the Act of December 22, 1789...
. Under the pseudonym "Sinclair" (the name of a hill that looms over Sète
Sète
Sète is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France. Its inhabitants are called Sétois....
, Maurice Clavel's native town), she involved herself at his side and participated in the liberation of Nogent-le-Rotrou
Nogent-le-Rotrou
Nogent-le-Rotrou is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France.It is a sub-prefecture and is located on the Huisne River, 56 kilometres west of Chartres on the RN23 and 150 kilometres south west of Paris, to which it is linked by both rail and motorway...
and of Chartres
Chartres
Chartres is a commune and capital of the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. It is located southwest of Paris.-Geography:Chartres is built on the left bank of the Eure River, on a hill crowned by its famous cathedral, the spires of which are a landmark in the surrounding country...
in 1944. She was one of the notables who welcomed General De Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
on the square in front of the Cathedral of Chartres
Cathedral of Chartres
The French medieval Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres is a Latin Rite Catholic cathedral located in Chartres, about southwest of Paris, is considered one of the finest examples of the French High Gothic style...
. Once the war ended, she married Maurice Clavel. She was decorated with the Croix de guerre
Croix de guerre
The Croix de guerre is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was awarded during World War I, again in World War II, and in other conflicts...
by General De Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
and with the Bronze Star
Bronze Star Medal
The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. As a medal it is awarded for merit, and with the "V" for valor device it is awarded for heroism. It is the fourth-highest combat award of the...
by General Patton.
Cocteau, Vilar and the TNP
In 1945, she attracted notice for her acting in a play by Federico García LorcaFederico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
, La casa de Bernarda Alba. Her strange and powerful personality drew the attention of Edwige Feuillère
Edwige Feuillère
Edwige Feuillère was a distinguished French stage and film actress....
, whose reader she became in L'Aigle à deux têtes
L'Aigle à deux têtes
L'Aigle à deux têtes is a French play in three acts by Jean Cocteau, written in 1943 and first performed in 1946. It is known variously in English as The Eagle with Two Heads, The Eagle Has Two Heads, The Two-Headed Eagle, The Double-Headed Eagle, and Eagle Rampant...
by Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
. The play was first presented in 1946 at the Royal Theatre of the Galeries Royales of Saint-Hubert in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, where she met with great success. After passing through Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, the play had its Parisian premiere at the Théâtre Hébertot
Théâtre Hébertot
Théâtre Hébertot is a theatre at 78, boulevard des Batignolles, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, France. The theatre, completed in 1838 and opening as the Théâtre des Batignolles, was later renamed Théâtre des Arts in 1907...
. Success followed the play all the way to a memorable performance at La Fenice
La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theatres in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of two theatres...
in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, greatly contributing to establishing the renown of Silvia's talent.
Playing next in Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
' play, Summer and Smoke, she fell in love with Léonor Fini
Leonor Fini
Leonor Fini was an Argentine surrealist painter.-Life and work:Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she was raised in Trieste, Italy. She moved to Milan at the age of 17, and then to Paris, in either 1931 or 1932...
who was then beginning as a set designer. From their friendship a pretty portrait remains: Silvia painted by Léonor (1954).
Through Clavel
Maurice Clavel
Maurice Clavel is a French writer, journalist and philosopher born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins .-Youth:...
, she then met Jean Vilar
Jean Vilar
Jean Vilar was a French man of the theatre, who created in 1947 the Avignon theatre festival.After he gave up his literature studies, in 1932 he followed in Paris a course of philosophy of Alain and the theatre courses of Charles Dullin...
in 1947 and took part in the great adventure that was the Théâtre National Populaire
Théâtre National Populaire
The Théâtre National Populaire is a theatre now at Villeurbanne, France. It was founded in 1920 by Firmin Gémier in Paris. The theater's policy is to deliver quality entertainment accessible to the general public....
. She thus took part in the first festival d'Avignon
Festival d'Avignon
The Festival d'Avignon, or Avignon Festival, is an annual arts festival held in the French city of Avignon. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, it is the oldest extant festival in France and one of the world's greatest...
, with The Story of Tobias and Sarah (1947). Beside Gérard Philipe
Gérard Philipe
Gérard Philipe was a prominent French actor, who had appeared in 34 films between 1944 and 1959.-Career:...
, she played Chimène in Le Cid
Le Cid
Le Cid is a tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille and published in 1636. It is based on the legend of El Cid.The play followed Corneille's first true tragedy, Médée, produced in 1635. An enormous popular success, Corneille's Le Cid was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic...
, then performed at Chaillot and subsequently on tour across Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
(1954). Next, she played with Vilar in Cinna
Cinna
Cinna was a cognomen that distinguished a patrician branch of the gens Cornelia, particularly in the late Roman Republic.Prominent members of this family include:...
and in The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro (play)
The Marriage of Figaro ) is a comedy in five acts, written in 1778 by Pierre Beaumarchais. This play is the second installment in the Figaro Trilogy, preceded by The Barber of Seville and followed by The Guilty Mother. The Barber begins the story with a simple love triangle in which the Count has...
. She thus became an emblematic figure of the TNP
Théâtre National Populaire
The Théâtre National Populaire is a theatre now at Villeurbanne, France. It was founded in 1920 by Firmin Gémier in Paris. The theater's policy is to deliver quality entertainment accessible to the general public....
and of French theatre in the world.
New Wave and cinema debut
Cinema, through the intermediary of Robert BressonRobert Bresson
-Life and career:Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life and the year of his birth, 1901 or 1907, varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and...
, had sought her out beginning in 1943
1943 in film
The year 1943 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 3 - 1st missing persons telecast * February 20 - American film studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor films....
, to play in Les Anges du péché. Bresson had hired her without knowing that she was an actress, as he was looking for non-professionals for his film... In 1948
1948 in film
The year 1948 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Laurence Olivier's Hamlet becomes the first British film to win the American Academy Award for Best Picture.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :...
, she played the role of Édith de Berg in the cinematic adaptation of L'Aigle à deux têtes
L'Aigle à deux têtes
L'Aigle à deux têtes is a French play in three acts by Jean Cocteau, written in 1943 and first performed in 1946. It is known variously in English as The Eagle with Two Heads, The Eagle Has Two Heads, The Two-Headed Eagle, The Double-Headed Eagle, and Eagle Rampant...
by Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
beside Feuillère
Edwige Feuillère
Edwige Feuillère was a distinguished French stage and film actress....
and Jean Marais
Jean Marais
-Biography:A native of Cherbourg, France, Marais starred in several movies directed by Jean Cocteau, for a time his lover, most famously Beauty and the Beast and Orphée ....
.
In 1955
1955 in film
The year 1955 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.* June 27 - The last ever Republic serial, King of the Carnival, is released....
, Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style....
, then a photographer at the TNP, directed her first film, one of the first belonging to the New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
. Varda remembers Silvia Monfort in La Pointe Courte: "Curious and a pioneer by nature, she threw herself into the project with delight and discipline. I really think she was happy to fight for a cinema of the future."
Henceforth separated from Maurice Clavel, Silvia Monfort shared her life with and participated in the films of director Jean-Paul Le Chanois. Despite her having an arm in a plaster cast, he insisted that she play a Polish prisoner beside François Périer
François Périer
François Périer, , born François Pillu in Paris, was one of France's most distinguished actors.He made over 110 film and TV appearances between 1938 and 1996. He was also prominent in the theatre. Among his most notable parts was that of Hugo in the first production of Jean-Paul Sartre's Les Mains...
and Pierre Fresnay
Pierre Fresnay
Pierre Fresnay was a French stage and film actor.Born Pierre Jules Louis Laudenbach in Paris, France in 1897, he was encouraged by his uncle, the actor Claude Garry, to pursue a career in theater and film...
in a film inspired by a true story, Les Évadés. This film met with great popular success in 1955
1955 in film
The year 1955 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.* June 27 - The last ever Republic serial, King of the Carnival, is released....
. She then played beside Jean Gabin
Jean Gabin
-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...
and Nicole Courcel
Nicole Courcel
Nicole Courcel is a French actress, who achieved popularity through the 1950s, and 1960s, though she is mostly unknown outside of France. Born Nicole Marie-Anne Andrieux in Saint-Cloud, western suburbs of Paris, she appeared in 43 films between 1947 and 1979...
in Le Cas du docteur Laurent, a film advocating painless childbirth (1957
1957 in film
The year 1957 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 21 - The movie Jailhouse Rock, starring Elvis Presley, opens.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue-Awards:...
), and then in an obscure film of Le Chanois dealing with parent-child relations, Par-dessus le mur (1961
1961 in film
The year 1961 in film involved some significant events, with West Side Story winning 10 Academy Awards.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:* Atlantis, the Lost ContinentB...
). In two films dealing with social conditions, she was the unforgettable Eponine
Éponine
Éponine Thénardier is a fictional character in the 1862 novelLes Misérables by Victor Hugo.- Éponine in the novel :As children, Éponine and her younger sister Azelma are described as pretty, well-dressed, charming and a delight to see. They are pampered and spoiled by their parents the Thénardiers...
of Les Misérables
Les Misérables (1958 film)
Les Misérables is a film version of the Victor Hugo novel released in France on March 12, 1958. Written by Michel Audiard and René Barjavel, the film was directed by Jean-Paul Le Chanois...
, alongside Gabin and Bourvil
Bourvil
André Bourvil, born André Robert Raimbourg was a French actor and singer best known for his roles in comedy, most notably in his collaboration with Louis de Funès in La Grande Vadrouille .-Biography:His father was killed in the First World War before Bourvil was born...
(1958
1958 in film
The year 1958 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 16- "In the Money" by William Beaudine is released on this date. It would be the last installment of The Bowery Boys series which began back in 1946....
), and then the Gypsy girl Myrtille in Mandrin, bandit gentilhomme beside Georges Rivière
Georges Rivière
Georges Rivière is a French actor who worked in Argentine cinema in the 1950s. He appeared in nearly 50 films between 1948 and 1970.-Selected filmography:* The Lame Devil * El Vampiro negro * John Paul Jones...
and Georges Wilson
Georges Wilson
Georges Wilson was a French film and television actor. He is the father of French actor Lambert Wilson.Wilson was born in Champigny-sur-Marne, Seine , to a French father and an Irish mother...
. This film wrapped up her cinematic career and her relationship with Le Chanois in 1962
1962 in film
The year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May - The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards are officially founded by the Taiwanese government....
.
On the road
During the 1960s, Silvia Monfort was passionate about cultural decentralization and so set out on the road with Jean DanetJean Danet
Jean Danet , was a French actor, activist, and gay theorist. He appeared in 27 films between 1942 and 1983....
and her Tréteaux de France. Each evening, they played under a big top in a different town. She took an active part in this experiment, seeing to it that new and contemporary plays were staged alternately with the classical repertoire. She deepened her knowledge of popular theatre and of her audience and thus acquired a mastery of travelling performances that was subsequently very useful to her. On 23 June 1965, Silvia wrote to Pierre Gruneberg: "I've convinced Danet to schedule for September a series of performances of the Prostitute
The Respectful Prostitute
The Respectful Prostitute is a French play by Jean-Paul Sartre, written in 1946, which observes a woman, a prostitute, caught up in a racially tense period of American history. The audience understands that there has been an incident on a train with said woman involved, but also a black man of...
and of Suddenly, Last Summer
Suddenly, Last Summer
Suddenly, Last Summer is a one-act play by Tennessee Williams. It opened off Broadway on January 7, 1958, as part of a double bill with another of Williams's one-acts, Something Unspoken. The presentation of the two plays was given the overall title Garden District, but Suddenly, Last Summer is...
under a big top around Paris (in this way the inconvenient returning directors will be able to come see it there if they need to). Oh, I would have done what I could."
Ceaselessly taking part in theatrical performances, she wrote at least once, sometimes several times a day to her companion Pierre Gruneberg. Scribbled on tablecloth corners, on the back of theatre programs or on hotel stationery, reactions, words of love and anecdotes were strung together.
In the collection of this correspondence, Letters to Pierre, Danielle Netter, assistant director, adds: "The Tréteaux de France was an extraordinary theatrical tool that gave us the occasion to present Sophocles and other dramatic poets before the tenants of the HLM, and one evening to hear a spectator declare at the end of Electra to Silvia, It's as beautiful as a Western!, which filled our tragedienne with joy."
An eclectic tragedienne
For nearly half a century, whether with the Tréteaux, in festivalsTheatre festival
Theatre festivals amongst the earliest types of festival. Classical Greek theatre was associated with religious festivals dedicated to Dionysus. The medieval mystery plays were presented at the major Christian feasts...
, in private theatres and later in her Carrés, Monfort explored the ancient and modern theatrical repertoires. She acted in no less than five versions of Phèdre
Phèdre
Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
in diffrerent theatres as well as on television. She interpreted numerous works of Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
and Corneille
Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
. She performed Sophocles
Sophocles
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
' Electra
Electra (Sophocles)
Electra or Elektra is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career.Set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan...
in the most incongruous of places, such as the "trou des Halles
Les Halles
Les Halles is an area of Paris, France, located in the 1er arrondissement, just south of the fashionable rue Montorgueil. It is named for the large central wholesale marketplace, which was demolished in 1971, to be replaced with an underground modern shopping precinct, the Forum des Halles...
" 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 1970.
She acted in the plays and theatrical adaptations of Maurice Clavel
Maurice Clavel
Maurice Clavel is a French writer, journalist and philosopher born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins .-Youth:...
, such as The Isle of Goats and The Noon Terrace. She was directed by Roger Planchon
Roger Planchon
Roger Planchon , was a French playwright, director, filmmaker.-Biography:...
at Villeurbanne
Villeurbanne
Villeurbanne is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France.It is situated northeast of Lyon, with which it forms the heart of the second-largest metropolitan area in France after that of Paris. Villeurbanne is the second-largest city in the department.-History:The current location of...
in 1959 in Love's Second Surprise and by Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
in Paris in 1961 in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
'Tis Pity She's a Whore
'Tis Pity She's a Whore is a tragedy written by John Ford. It was likely first performed between 1629 and 1633, by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit Theatre. The play was first published in 1633, in a quarto printed by Nicholas Okes for the bookseller Richard Collins...
beside Alain Delon
Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon is a French actor. He rose quickly to stardom, and by the age of 23 was already being compared to French actors such as Gérard Philipe and Jean Marais, as well as American actor James Dean. He was even called the male Brigitte Bardot...
and Romy Schneider
Romy Schneider
Romy Schneider was an Austrian-born German film actress who also held French citizenship.-Early life:Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Nazi-era Vienna, six months after the Anschluss, into a family of actors that included her paternal grandmother Rosa Albach-Retty, her Austrian...
. She made appearances in Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale...
(1953) and Suddenly, Last Summer
Suddenly, Last Summer
Suddenly, Last Summer is a one-act play by Tennessee Williams. It opened off Broadway on January 7, 1958, as part of a double bill with another of Williams's one-acts, Something Unspoken. The presentation of the two plays was given the overall title Garden District, but Suddenly, Last Summer is...
(1965) by Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
. She incarnated the Sphinx
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
of Cocteau's The Infernal Machine in festivals as well as on television with Claude Giraud in 1963. She was The Respectful Prostitute
The Respectful Prostitute
The Respectful Prostitute is a French play by Jean-Paul Sartre, written in 1946, which observes a woman, a prostitute, caught up in a racially tense period of American history. The audience understands that there has been an incident on a train with said woman involved, but also a black man of...
of Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
(1965) as well as The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then before a more general audience at The Globe, in 1613-14...
beside Raf Vallone
Raf Vallone
Raffaele "Raf" Vallone was an Italian footballer, actor and an international film star.Born in Tropea, Calabria, the son of a lawyer, Vallone attended Liceo classico Cavour in Turin, and studied Law and Philosophy at the University of Turin and entered his father's law firm...
(1981).
At Carré Thorigny, she brought about the debut of Bernard Giraudeau
Bernard Giraudeau
Bernard Giraudeau was a French actor, film director, scriptwriter, producer and writer.-Life:Giraudeau was born in La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime. In 1963 he enlisted in the French navy as a trainee engineer, qualifying as the first in his class a year later...
in Tom Eyen
Tom Eyen
Tom Eyen was an American playwright, lyricist, television writer and theatre director.Eyen is best known for works at opposite ends of the theatrical spectrum...
's Why Doesn't Anna's Dress Want to Come off (1974). She was also seen in The Oresteia
The Oresteia
The Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus which concerns the end of the curse on the House of Atreus. When originally performed it was accompanied by Proteus, a satyr play that would have been performed following the trilogy; it has not survived...
(1962) and The Persians
The Persians
The Persians is an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus. First produced in 472 BCE, it is the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre...
of Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
(1984). She incarnated the fearsome Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia [luˈkrɛtsia ˈbɔrʤa] was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Valencian who later became Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei. Her brothers included Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia...
of Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
(1975) and Marguerite de Bourgogne of The Tower of Nesle by Alexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
(1986). She created an indescribable Alarica in The Evil Is Spreading (1963) and was the Maid
Joan of Arc
Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
of Jacques Audiberti
Jacques Audiberti
Jacques Audiberti was a French playwright, poet and novelist and exponent of the Theatre of the Absurd.He was born in Antibes, France. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine...
(1971). She was a vibrant Ethel
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg were American communists who were convicted and executed in 1953 for conspiracy to commit espionage during a time of war. The charges related to their passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union...
in a radical play helmed by Alain Decaux
Alain Decaux
Alain Decaux was born on 23 July 1925 in Lille, France. A historian by profession, he was elected to the Académie française on 15 February 1979.-Bibliography:* 1947 * 1949 ...
, The Rosenbergs Should Not Die (1968). She took on Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
with Jacques, or the Submission
Jacques ou la soumission
Jack, or The Submission is an absurd play by Eugène Ionesco, the first of two about Jack and his family, all of whom are named after Jack ....
(1971). She restored Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
to popular favor with Philippe Lemaire in When We Dead Awaken
When We Dead Awaken
When We Dead Awaken is the last play written by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Published in December 1899, Ibsen wrote the play between February and November of that year. The first performance was at the Haymarket Theatre in London, a day or two before publication.-Plot summary:The first act...
(1976) and then with Michel Auclair
Michel Auclair
Michel Auclair was an actor of Serbian and French ancestry, known best for his roles in French cinema.Auclair was born Vladimir Vujović to a Serbian father and a French mother in Koblenz. His father was Vojislav Vujović, prominent Yugoslav Communist and secretary of the Communist Youth...
in The Lady from the Sea
The Lady from the Sea
The Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.Kvinnan från havet is a ballet by choreographer Birgit Cullberg, and based on Ibsen's play...
(1977). To celebrate the centenary of Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
's birth, she appeared for the last time on the Vaugirard stage in a poetic and musical spectacle, The Two Ways, in 1989.
In 1972, on the occasion of the republication of her novel The Raia (Hands Full of Fingers), Silvia Monfort described her favorite roles: "Gérard Philippe, whose Chimène I was, had a habit of replying that his favorite role was his next. For me, the one that I am playing fulfills me. Imagine! What marvelous relations between an actor and his character. They see each other every day, but they also know that it's not forever, so they have to work twice as hard. Certain characters have more of an affinity for us. I have always felt myself closer to adolescents thirsting for the absolute than to women with divided hearts. I prefer Electra to Clytemnestra. I was wildly in love with Alarica from The Evil Is Spreading, Éponine from Les Misérables and recently The Maid by Audiberti. But this doesn't prevent me from knowing beautiful stories about those whom I wouldn't play. Of all the heroines, the one who perhaps excited me most was the queen of the Amazons, Penthesilea. When she thought herself defeated by Achilles, she refused to follow him into his kingdom. She wanted him to be king in her land. So she tore him up with her nails, devoured him with her teeth, and said: All women swear to their lovers: I will eat you as long as I love you – well, I did it."
A mythic Phèdre
Silvia Monfort figues among the most important performers of Phèdre. Notably, she had as a partner in the role of Theseus Jean-Claude DrouotJean-Claude Drouot
Jean Claude Drouot is a Belgian actor.-Biography:Jean Claude Drouot was formed in Young Theater of Université Libre de Bruxelles . Later it leaves settling down has Paris or he follows Charles Dullin's courses and has to leave of 1962, he interprets the big tragedies and rooms plays of Molière...
or of course Alain Cuny
Alain Cuny
Alain Cuny was a French actor.He was born René Xavier Marie in Saint-Malo, Brittany, and studied medicine for a while before entering the film industry as a costume and set designer. Cuny started acting in the 1930s...
in the theatre and in a televised version in 1982.
A study by the CNRS about the great tragediennes who have incarnated this character in the 20th century was published in Pour la Science, the French version of Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
. This study analyzed the relationship between the pauses and the versified text as well as the fluctuations in delivery and demonstrated that Silvia Monfort made the most important use of them (92% of pauses and 3.8 syllables/minute) in relation to other tragic actresses (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...
, Marie Bell
Marie Bell
Marie Bell , born Marie-Jeanne Bellon, was a French tragedian, comic actor and stage director. She was the director of the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris from 1962 onwards, and this theatre now bears her name....
, Nada Strancar and Natacha Amal
Natacha Amal
Natacha Amal is a Belgian actress born to a Moroccan father and a Russian mother in Brussels. She was married with Claude Rappe in 1997, but the couple divorced in 2007.-Cinema:* 1989 : Pentimento by Tonie Marshall, la dame des WC...
); this characteristic of her acting contributed to give Silvia Monfort's interpretation an exceptional quality of psychological depth and emotion which made a success out of her.
She herself said of her character in 1973: "Phèdre burns in each one of us. We have hardly grasped the image in the mirror when she dims, and the imminence of this obliteration sharpens the acuteness of the reflection […] What matters is that there has been a meeting in mystery even from the first reading. It is like desire, or rather it is present in the look that provokes it, or rather there will never be unison. All the opinions, competent, imperious, singular, that were offered to me on the subject of Phèdre, and to which I listened intensely, had no other result with me than to lead me back to my Phèdre, despite her long being hazy, with the obviousness of a pawn moving back to the first square on a board game […] this is the wonder of Phèdre: to tackle it is to resign oneself to it."
The fall that made her an author
In 1946, her first novel appeared. She later explained that what had determined her to write was her seven-meter fall through the glass roof of the Studio des Champs-ÉlyséesThéâtre des Champs-Élysées
The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées is a theatre at 15 avenue Montaigne. Despite its name, the theatre is not on the Champs-Élysées but nearby in another part of the 8th arrondissement of Paris....
. She played in Federico Garcia Lorca
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
's La casa de Bernarda Alba and Maurice Clavel, disdaining her philosophy books, wrote for her first play, The Love Letters. :
"The day when I was to abandon one play for the other, my colleagues from the Studio offered me champagne on the roof of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. I had never drunk wine or champagne. I passed through a skylight and found myself in the hospital, my head shattered. Three weeks in a coma, during which Maurice's play was prepared without me.
When I was back on my feet, sad and without a role to play, I sat down at my work table. Without this accident, maybe I would never have taken the time to write. For later, in order to write, I had to take away time from the theatre."
When a journalist asked her why the actress which she had never ceased to be had never been tempted to write a play, or a film script, she replied: "Writing for the theatre is a very special gift. Even some great novelists don't have it. The dramatic author breathes into his characters a life that he doesn't control.
But what interests me above all in writing is analysis. To know, to explain the reason for things, to follow step by step the actions of my characters.
And then, I couldn't stand seeing them with another face than that which I had in my mind!"
"This will be my theatre!"
In 1972, with the support of Jacques Duhamel, then Minister of Cultural Affairs, she set up and directed the Carré Thorigny in the neighborhood of Le MaraisLe Marais
Le Marais is a historic district in Paris, France. Long the aristocratic district of Paris, it hosts many outstanding buildings of historic and architectural importance...
in Paris, where she put on innovative multidisciplinary shows. She was especially interested in the circus world and organized an exhibit entitled Circus in color which met with enormous success. Following her contacts with circus people and her meeting with Alexis Gruss, she organized old-style circus performances in the courtyard of the Hôtel Salé
Musée Picasso
The Musée Picasso is an art gallery located in the Hôtel Salé in rue de Thorigny, in the Marais district of Paris dedicated to the work of the artist Pablo Picasso .-Building:...
, located in front of the Carré. The public's fancy led Monfort and Gruss to set up (in 1974) the first circus and mime's school in France, L'école au Carré, which they directed together. They wanted to highlight the nobility of the circus's origins and were involved in bringing to life an updated old-style circus. The Gruss circus followed Monfort in her successive moves until it became a national circus in 1982.
It was at the Carré Thorigny that Alain Decaux
Alain Decaux
Alain Decaux was born on 23 July 1925 in Lille, France. A historian by profession, he was elected to the Académie française on 15 February 1979.-Bibliography:* 1947 * 1949 ...
awarded Silvia Monfort the Legion of Honor in 1973 while paying homage to "her passion for the theatre and the inflexible will with which she serves it."
Jardin d'Acclimatation
The Jardin d'Acclimatation is a children's amusement park with a menagerie, the Exploradôme museum, and other attractions located in the northern part of the Bois de Boulogne, in Paris.-History:...
from 1978 to 1979. She then had to move her big top onto the site of the former abattoirs of Vaugirard. There, she actually set up two big tops, one for theatre and one for the circus. Nevertheless, lacking funds, the project of renovating the Gaîté-Lyrique was abandoned.
Yet she never stopped working to establish a Nouveau Carré at Vaugirard on the site of and in place of the big tops. The decision to build the theatre such as it is today was taken in 1986. On 7 March 1989, she wrote: "This will be my theatre. Even so, incredible! I don't know a single living person for whom his own theatre was built, with his name and of the right size." But she died a few months before its completion. Inaugurated in 1992, it bears her name: Théâtre Silvia-Monfort
Théâtre Silvia-Monfort
The Théâtre Silvia Monfort is a theatre company and building in Paris, located at 106 rue Brancion in the 15th arrondissement. It has 456 seats and its stage is 15m wide by 7m high.-History:...
.
During the last years of their time together, Silvia Monfort and Pierre Gruneberg were constantly apart. In winter, as a ski coach, he had to stay at Courchevel
Courchevel
Courchevel is the name of a ski resort located in the commune of Saint-Bon-Tarentaise in the French Alps, in the Tarentaise Valley, Savoie, Rhône-Alpes region. It is a part of Les Trois Vallées, the largest linked ski area in the world...
, while she worked at Paris, then during the festival period he worked at Cap Ferrat
Cap Ferrat
Cap Ferrat is situated in Alpes-Maritimes département, in southeastern France. It is located in the commune of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.Saint Hospitius lived here as a recluse during the sixth century...
as a swimming instructor, whereas Silvia Monfort's ill health obliged her to pass the summer at Courchevel, alone.
She died on 30 March 1991 of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
.
The Silvia Monfort Prize
Pierre Gruneberg, who became Silvia Monfort's lover in 1963 and married her on 24 May 1990, founded the Silvia Monfort Prize Association in 1996, carrying to completion an idea that Monfort did not have time to put into material form. This prize is issued every two years to a young tragic actress by a professional jury. Since its inception, the prizewinners have been:- Smadi Wolfman (1996)
- Rachida BrakniRachida BrakniRachida Brakni is a French actress of Algerian origin. She is married to the football hero turned film actor Eric Cantona, whom she met on the filmset of Outremangeur in 2002....
(1998) - Mona Abdel Hadi (2000)
- Isabelle Joly (2002)
- Marion Bottolier (2004)
- Gina Ndjemba (2006)
The Prix Silvia Monfort 2006 was awarded on 22 May to Gina Ndjemba, aged 21, a first-year student at the Conservatoire National d'Art Dramatique, for her interpretation of the role of Camille in Horace
Horace (play)
Horace is a 1972 television play written by Roy Minton and directed by Alan Clarke, first broadcast as part of BBC One's Play for Today series on 21 March 1972.-Plot:Diabetic Horace is mentally impaired and works in a joke shop...
by Corneille
Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
. This sixth Prix Silvia Monfort ceremony took place at the celebrated tragedienne's theatre in the presence of the academician
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
Alain Decaux
Alain Decaux
Alain Decaux was born on 23 July 1925 in Lille, France. A historian by profession, he was elected to the Académie française on 15 February 1979.-Bibliography:* 1947 * 1949 ...
, a great friend of Silvia Monfort, to whom he paid a moving homage. This Prize was accompanied by a €4,600 award.
Quotations about her
- Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
:
- "Silvia Monfort possesses an exquisite waist, like that of an hourglass, and the golden sand from up top flows toward the bottom, toward her belly, whence all great actresses draw their genius.
- I have known several Silvia Monforts. One, with a wreath of wheat in her hair, entered free Paris as a young leader of the Resistance. Another had written a book of the first rank; a third – and my eye had not yet linked them – came and presented herself at the Théâtre Hébertot to play the role of Mademoiselle de Berg in L’Aigle à deux têtes. She played it and it was only later, a long time later, when all these Silvia Monforts became just one, to whom I address my tender gratitude.
- Here she is on her successful voyage, the voyage from role to role, from book to book, the voyage on board which I wave the handkerchief of friendship as a sign of loyal affection and good luck."
- Juliette GrécoJuliette GrécoJuliette Gréco, — also Michelle – is a French actress and popular chanson singer.-Early life and family:Juliette Gréco was born in Montpellier to a Corsican father and a mother who became active in the Résistance, in the Hérault département of southern France. She was raised by her maternal...
:
- Juliette Gréco
- "Silvia Monfort came back from a solitary walk and held out a flower to her husband Clavel, saying in her husky voice: 'I've stolen this flower for you on the mountain...' Jujube was stunned and the exotic Ophelia disappeared under the arches that surrounded the swimming pool."
- L'HumanitéL'HumanitéL'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
(following her death):
- L'Humanité
- "She was a grande dame of the theatre and of the city. We will remember her beautiful tragedienne's voice and her determined wish to make a different theatre, her theatre, in the modernity of the ancients and of the classics. Let us hope that that which will be born and bear her name in the heart of Paris will prolong her memory, the fervor of her art and the exacting purity of her work."
Filmography
- 19431943 in filmThe year 1943 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 3 - 1st missing persons telecast * February 20 - American film studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor films....
: Les Anges du pêchéAngels of the StreetsAngels of the Streets was the first feature film directed by Robert Bresson. Made in 1943, nine years after his comedy short Les affaires publiques, it was Bresson's only film released during the German occupation of France.Unlike the films Bresson is most famous for, Angels of the Streets was...
by Robert BressonRobert Bresson-Life and career:Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life and the year of his birth, 1901 or 1907, varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and...
with Renée FaureRenée FaureRenée Faure was a French actress.She was a jury member during the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.-Filmography:... - 19471947 in filmThe year 1947 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 22 - Great Expectations is premiered in New York.*November 24 : The United States House of Representatives of the 80th Congress voted 346 to 17 to approve citations for contempt of Congress against the "Hollywood Ten".*November 25...
: La Grande Maguet by Roger Richebé with Madeleine Robinson - 19481948 in filmThe year 1948 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Laurence Olivier's Hamlet becomes the first British film to win the American Academy Award for Best Picture.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :...
: L'Aigle à deux têtesThe Eagle with Two HeadsThe Eagle with Two Heads is a French film directed by Jean Cocteau released in 1948. It was adapted from his own play L'Aigle à deux têtes which was first staged in 1946, and it retained the principal actors from the first Paris production.-Synopsis:On the 10th anniversary of the assassination of...
by Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
with Edwige FeuillèreEdwige FeuillèreEdwige Feuillère was a distinguished French stage and film actress....
and Jean MaraisJean Marais-Biography:A native of Cherbourg, France, Marais starred in several movies directed by Jean Cocteau, for a time his lover, most famously Beauty and the Beast and Orphée .... - 19491949 in filmThe year 1949 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello...
: Le Secret de MayerlingLe Secret de MayerlingLe secret de Mayerling is a 1949 French historical drama film directed by Jean Delannoy and starring Jean Marais, Dominique Blanchar and Jean Debucourt...
by Jean DelannoyJean DelannoyJean Delannoy was a French actor, film editor, screenwriter and film director.Although Delannoy was born in a Paris suburb, his family is from Haute-Normandie in the north of France...
with Jean MaraisJean Marais-Biography:A native of Cherbourg, France, Marais starred in several movies directed by Jean Cocteau, for a time his lover, most famously Beauty and the Beast and Orphée .... - 19551955 in filmThe year 1955 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.* June 27 - The last ever Republic serial, King of the Carnival, is released....
: La Pointe Courte by Agnès VardaAgnès VardaAgnès Varda is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style....
with Philippe NoiretPhilippe NoiretPhilippe Noiret was a French film actor.-Biography:Noiret's father was in the clothes trade. Philippe was an indifferent scholar and attended several prestigious Paris schools, including the Lycée Janson de Sailly. He failed several times to pass his baccalauréat exams, so he decided to study... - 19551955 in filmThe year 1955 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.* June 27 - The last ever Republic serial, King of the Carnival, is released....
: Les Évadés by Jean-Paul Le Chanois with Pierre FresnayPierre FresnayPierre Fresnay was a French stage and film actor.Born Pierre Jules Louis Laudenbach in Paris, France in 1897, he was encouraged by his uncle, the actor Claude Garry, to pursue a career in theater and film...
and François PérierFrançois PérierFrançois Périer, , born François Pillu in Paris, was one of France's most distinguished actors.He made over 110 film and TV appearances between 1938 and 1996. He was also prominent in the theatre. Among his most notable parts was that of Hugo in the first production of Jean-Paul Sartre's Les Mains... - 19561956 in filmThe year 1956 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 5 - The Ten Commandments opens in cinemas and becomes one of the most successful and popular movies of all time, currently ranking 5th on the list of all time moneymakers * February 5 - First showing of documentary films by...
: Ce soir les jupons volent by Dimitri KirsanoffDimitri KirsanoffDimitri Kirsanoff was an early filmmaker, considered part of the French Impressionist movement in film. He is known for his inexpensively made experimental films.-Early life:...
with Sophie Desmarets - 19561956 in filmThe year 1956 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 5 - The Ten Commandments opens in cinemas and becomes one of the most successful and popular movies of all time, currently ranking 5th on the list of all time moneymakers * February 5 - First showing of documentary films by...
: Le Théâtre national populaireThéâtre National PopulaireThe Théâtre National Populaire is a theatre now at Villeurbanne, France. It was founded in 1920 by Firmin Gémier in Paris. The theater's policy is to deliver quality entertainment accessible to the general public....
by Georges FranjuGeorges Franju-External links:* at Allmovie...
(Short film, 28 min) with Jean VilarJean VilarJean Vilar was a French man of the theatre, who created in 1947 the Avignon theatre festival.After he gave up his literature studies, in 1932 he followed in Paris a course of philosophy of Alain and the theatre courses of Charles Dullin... - 19571957 in filmThe year 1957 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 21 - The movie Jailhouse Rock, starring Elvis Presley, opens.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue-Awards:...
: Le Cas du docteur Laurent by Jean-Paul Le Chanois with Jean GabinJean Gabin-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...
and Nicole CourcelNicole CourcelNicole Courcel is a French actress, who achieved popularity through the 1950s, and 1960s, though she is mostly unknown outside of France. Born Nicole Marie-Anne Andrieux in Saint-Cloud, western suburbs of Paris, she appeared in 43 films between 1947 and 1979... - 19581958 in filmThe year 1958 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 16- "In the Money" by William Beaudine is released on this date. It would be the last installment of The Bowery Boys series which began back in 1946....
: Les MisérablesLes Misérables (1958 film)Les Misérables is a film version of the Victor Hugo novel released in France on March 12, 1958. Written by Michel Audiard and René Barjavel, the film was directed by Jean-Paul Le Chanois...
by Jean-Paul Le Chanois with Jean GabinJean Gabin-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...
and BourvilBourvilAndré Bourvil, born André Robert Raimbourg was a French actor and singer best known for his roles in comedy, most notably in his collaboration with Louis de Funès in La Grande Vadrouille .-Biography:His father was killed in the First World War before Bourvil was born... - 19591959 in filmThe year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.-Events:* The Three Stooges make their 190th and last short film, Sappy Bull Fighters....
: Du rififi chez les femmes by Alex Joffé with Robert HosseinRobert HosseinRobert Hossein is a French film actor of Azeri origin, director and writer. He directed the 1982 adaption of Les Misérables, and appeared in Vice and Virtue, Le Casse, Les Uns et les Autres and Venus Beauty Institute...
and Roger HaninRoger HaninRoger Hanin is a French actor , best known for playing the title role in the 1989-2006 TV crime series, Navarro.-Personal life:... - 19601960 in filmThe year 1960 in film involved some significant events, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the top-grossing release in the U.S.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I...
: La Française et l'amour, sketch La Femme seule by Jean-Paul Le Chanois with Robert LamoureuxRobert LamoureuxRobert Lamoureux was a French actor, screenwriter and film director. He appeared in 37 films between 1951 and 1994...
and Martine CarolMartine Carol-Biography:Born Marie-Louise Jeanne Nicolle Mourer in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, , she studied acting under René Simon , making her stage debut in 1940 and her first motion picture in 1943. One of the most beautiful women in film, she was frequently cast as an elegant blonde seductress... - 19611961 in filmThe year 1961 in film involved some significant events, with West Side Story winning 10 Academy Awards.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:* Atlantis, the Lost ContinentB...
: Par-dessus le mur by Jean-Paul Le Chanois - 19621962 in filmThe year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May - The Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards are officially founded by the Taiwanese government....
: Mandrin, bandit gentilhomme by Jean-Paul Le Chanois with Georges RivièreGeorges RivièreGeorges Rivière is a French actor who worked in Argentine cinema in the 1950s. He appeared in nearly 50 films between 1948 and 1970.-Selected filmography:* The Lame Devil * El Vampiro negro * John Paul Jones...
and Georges WilsonGeorges WilsonGeorges Wilson was a French film and television actor. He is the father of French actor Lambert Wilson.Wilson was born in Champigny-sur-Marne, Seine , to a French father and an Irish mother... - 19751975 in filmThe year 1975 in film involved some significant events, with Steven Spielberg's thriller Jaws topping the box office.-Events:*March 26 - The film version of The Who's Tommy premieres in London....
: Jean Marais, artisan du rêve by Gérard Devillers (Short film; narration)
Theatre
Private theatres, TNP and Tréteaux de France- 1945: Jeanne d'Arc by Charles PéguyCharles PéguyCharles Péguy was a noted French poet, essayist, and editor. His two main philosophies were socialism and nationalism, but by 1908 at the latest, after years of uneasy agnosticism, he had become a devout but non-practicing Roman Catholic.From that time, Catholicism strongly influenced his...
(Dreux) - 1945: La casa de Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia LorcaFederico García LorcaFederico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
(Studio des Champs-Élysées) - 1946: L'Aigle à deux têtesL'Aigle à deux têtesL'Aigle à deux têtes is a French play in three acts by Jean Cocteau, written in 1943 and first performed in 1946. It is known variously in English as The Eagle with Two Heads, The Eagle Has Two Heads, The Two-Headed Eagle, The Double-Headed Eagle, and Eagle Rampant...
by Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
(Théâtre Hébertot) - 1947: The Story of Tobias and Sarah by Paul ClaudelPaul ClaudelPaul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
(1st festival d'AvignonFestival d'AvignonThe Festival d'Avignon, or Avignon Festival, is an annual arts festival held in the French city of Avignon. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, it is the oldest extant festival in France and one of the world's greatest...
) - 1948: ShéhérazadeShéhérazadeShéhérazade is the title of two works by the French composer Maurice Ravel.Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie, written in 1898 but unpublished, is a work for orchestra intended as the overture for an opera of the same name...
by Jules SupervielleJules SupervielleJules Supervielle was a French poet and writer born in Uruguay.Jules Supervielle always kept away from Surrealism which was dominant in the first half of the twentieth century...
(Festival d'Avignon) - 1949: Pas d'amour by Ugo Betti, adaptation de Maurice ClavelMaurice ClavelMaurice Clavel is a French writer, journalist and philosopher born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins .-Youth:...
(Noctambules) - 1950: AndromaqueAndromaqueAndromaque is a tragedy in five acts by the French playwright Jean Racine written in alexandrine verse. It was first performed on 17 November 1667 before the court of Louis XIV in the Louvre in the private chambers of the Queen, Marie Thérèse, by the royal company of actors, called "les Grands...
by Racine (Nîmes) - 1951: Maguelone by Maurice ClavelMaurice ClavelMaurice Clavel is a French writer, journalist and philosopher born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins .-Youth:...
(Théâtre Marigny) - 1951: ElectraElectra (Sophocles)Electra or Elektra is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career.Set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan...
by SophoclesSophoclesSophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
, adaptation by Maurice ClavelMaurice ClavelMaurice Clavel is a French writer, journalist and philosopher born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins .-Youth:...
(Mardis de l'œuvre, Noctambules) - 1952: Les Radis creux by Jean Meckert (Théâtre de Poche)
- 1952: Doña Rosita la soltera by Federico Garcia LorcaFederico García LorcaFederico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
(Mardis de l'œuvre, Noctambules) - 1953: The Isle of Goats by Ugo Betti, adaptation by Maurice ClavelMaurice ClavelMaurice Clavel is a French writer, journalist and philosopher born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins .-Youth:...
(Noctambules) - 1953: Le Chevalier des neiges by Boris VianBoris VianBoris Vian was a French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. He is best remembered today for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of their...
(Caen) - 1953: The Merchant of VeniceThe Merchant of VeniceThe Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
by Shakespeare (Noctambules) - 1953: Summer and Smoke by Tennessee WilliamsTennessee WilliamsThomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
(Théâtre de l'ŒuvreThéâtre de l'ŒuvreThe Théâtre de l'Œuvre is a Paris theatre, located atop cité Monthiers, at 55 rue de Clichy in the 9° arrondissement in Paris, France. It is best known as the theatre where Alfred Jarry’s nihilistic farce Ubu Roi premiered in 1896....
) - 1954: Le CidLe CidLe Cid is a tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille and published in 1636. It is based on the legend of El Cid.The play followed Corneille's first true tragedy, Médée, produced in 1635. An enormous popular success, Corneille's Le Cid was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic...
by CorneillePierre CorneillePierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
(TNPThéâtre National PopulaireThe Théâtre National Populaire is a theatre now at Villeurbanne, France. It was founded in 1920 by Firmin Gémier in Paris. The theater's policy is to deliver quality entertainment accessible to the general public....
) - 1954: CinnaCinnaCinna was a cognomen that distinguished a patrician branch of the gens Cornelia, particularly in the late Roman Republic.Prominent members of this family include:...
by CorneillePierre CorneillePierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
(TNPThéâtre National PopulaireThe Théâtre National Populaire is a theatre now at Villeurbanne, France. It was founded in 1920 by Firmin Gémier in Paris. The theater's policy is to deliver quality entertainment accessible to the general public....
) - 1955: PenthesileaPenthesileaPenthesilea or Penthesileia was an Amazonian queen in Greek mythology, the daughter of Ares and Otrera and the sister of Hippolyta, Antiope and Melanippe...
by Heinrich Von Kleist (Théâtre Hébertot) - 1956: Marie Stuart by Friedrich SchillerFriedrich SchillerJohann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
(Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier) - 1956: The Marriage of FigaroThe Marriage of Figaro (play)The Marriage of Figaro ) is a comedy in five acts, written in 1778 by Pierre Beaumarchais. This play is the second installment in the Figaro Trilogy, preceded by The Barber of Seville and followed by The Guilty Mother. The Barber begins the story with a simple love triangle in which the Count has...
by Beaumarchais (TNPThéâtre National PopulaireThe Théâtre National Populaire is a theatre now at Villeurbanne, France. It was founded in 1920 by Firmin Gémier in Paris. The theater's policy is to deliver quality entertainment accessible to the general public....
) - 1957: Pitié pour les héros by M.A. Baudy (Comédie de Paris)
- 1959: Love's Second Surprise by Marivaux (Villeurbanne)
- 1959: Bérénice by RacineJean RacineJean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
(Festival de Dijon) - 1959: La Machine infernale by Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
(Festival de Vaison-la-Romaine) - 1959: Lady GodivaLady GodivaGodiva , often referred to as Lady Godiva , was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants...
by Jean Canolle (Festivals, Théâtre Moderne, Théâtre Édouard VII) - 1960: Edward IIEdward II (play)Edward II is a Renaissance or Early Modern period play written by Christopher Marlowe. It is one of the earliest English history plays. The full title of the first publication is The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud...
by Christopher Marlowe (Villeurbanne) - 1960: Love's Second Surprise by Marivaux (Villeurbanne)
- 1960: Si la foule nous voit ensemble by Claude Bal (Théâtre de Paris)
- 1960: Arden of FavershamArden of FavershamArden of Faversham is an Elizabethan play, entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on 3 April 1592, and printed later that same year by Edward White. It depicts the murder of one Thomas Arden by his wife Alice Arden and her lover, and their subsequent discovery and punishment...
(Festivals de Dijon et de Vaison-la-Romaine) - 1960: PhèdrePhèdrePhèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
by RacineJean RacineJean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
(Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, tournée Européenne) - 1961: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore'Tis Pity She's a Whore'Tis Pity She's a Whore is a tragedy written by John Ford. It was likely first performed between 1629 and 1633, by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit Theatre. The play was first published in 1633, in a quarto printed by Nicholas Okes for the bookseller Richard Collins...
by John Ford (Théâtre de Paris) - 1962: The OresteiaThe OresteiaThe Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus which concerns the end of the curse on the House of Atreus. When originally performed it was accompanied by Proteus, a satyr play that would have been performed following the trilogy; it has not survived...
by AeschylusAeschylusAeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
, adaptation by Paul Claudel - 1962: La Nuit de feu by Marcelle Maurette (Port-Royal)
- 1962: Helen by EuripidesEuripidesEuripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
, adaptation by Jean Canolle (Narbonne) - 1962: Horace by CorneillePierre CorneillePierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
(Scala de Milan) - 1963: The Evil Is Spreading by Jacques AudibertiJacques AudibertiJacques Audiberti was a French playwright, poet and novelist and exponent of the Theatre of the Absurd.He was born in Antibes, France. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine...
(Théâtre La Bruyère) - 1963: The Governess by Vitaliano Brancati (Théâtre en Rond)
- 1963: Marie Stuart by Friedrich SchillerFriedrich SchillerJohann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
(Les Nuits de Bourgogne) - 1964: Life Is but a Dream by Pedro Calderón de la BarcaPedro Calderón de la BarcaPedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca , was a dramatist, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. During certain periods of his life he was also a soldier and a Roman Catholic priest...
(Festival d'Annecy) - 1964: Julius Caesar by Shakespeare (Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, Lyon)
- 1964: Catharsis by Michel Parent (Dijon)
- 1965: Suddenly, Last Summer by Tennessee WilliamsTennessee WilliamsThomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
(Tréteaux de France, Mathurins) - 1965: The Respectful Prostitute by Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
(Tréteaux de France, Mathurins) - 1965: The Story of Tobias and Sarah by Paul ClaudelPaul ClaudelPaul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
(Les Nuits de Bourgogne) - 1965: ElectraElectra (Sophocles)Electra or Elektra is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career.Set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan...
by SophoclesSophoclesSophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
, adaptation de Maurice Clavel (Festival d'Annecy, Tréteaux de France) - 1965: Enemies by Maxim GorkyMaxim GorkyAlexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
(Théâtre des Amandiers Nanterre) - 1965: La Surprise de l'amourLa Surprise de l'amourLa Surprise de l'amour is a three-act romantic comedy by French playwright Marivaux. Its title is usually translated into English as The Surprise of Love. La Surprise de l'amour was first performed 3 May 1722 by the Comédie Italienne at the Hotel de Bourgogne in Paris...
by Marivaux (Théâtre des Amandiers Nanterre, festivals) - 1966: ElectraElectra (Sophocles)Electra or Elektra is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career.Set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan...
by SophoclesSophoclesSophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
, adaptation de Maurice Clavel (Mathurins) - 1966: The Evil Is Spreading by Jacques AudibertiJacques AudibertiJacques Audiberti was a French playwright, poet and novelist and exponent of the Theatre of the Absurd.He was born in Antibes, France. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine...
(Tréteaux de France) - 1966: Suddenly, Last Summer by Tennessee WilliamsTennessee WilliamsThomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
(Tréteaux de France, Mathurins) - 1966: The Respectful Prostitute by Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
(Tréteaux de France, Mathurins) - 1967: PhèdrePhèdrePhèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
by Racine (Tréteaux de France) - 1967: The Evil Is Spreading by Jacques AudibertiJacques AudibertiJacques Audiberti was a French playwright, poet and novelist and exponent of the Theatre of the Absurd.He was born in Antibes, France. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine...
(Tréteaux de France) - 1968: The Rosenbergs Should Not Die by Alain DecauxAlain DecauxAlain Decaux was born on 23 July 1925 in Lille, France. A historian by profession, he was elected to the Académie française on 15 February 1979.-Bibliography:* 1947 * 1949 ...
(Tréteaux de France) - 1968: The Respectful Prostitute by Jean-Paul Sartre (Tréteaux de France)
- 1969: The Rosenbergs Should Not Die by Alain Decaux (Porte Saint-Martin)
- 1970: The Respectful Prostitute by Jean-Paul Sartre (Halles de Paris)
- 1970: Electra by Sophocles, adaptation by Maurice Clavel (Halles de Paris)
- 1970: Jacques, or the Submission by Ionesco (Château de Boucard)
- 1970: The Maid by Jacques Audiberti (Nice)
- 1971: The Maid by Jacques Audiberti (Festival du Marais)
Carré Thorigny
- 1972: Opens October 12
- 1973: Le Bal des cuisinières by Bernard Da Costa (and at the festival d'Avignon)
- 1973: PhèdrePhèdrePhèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
by RacineJean RacineJean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition... - 1973: Cantique des cantiques, oratorio by Roger Frima
- 1973: Conversations dans le Loir-et-Cher by Paul ClaudelPaul ClaudelPaul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
- 1973: Cirque Gruss at the Hôtel Salé
- 1973: Jean Cocteau and the Angels, poetic soirée
- 1973: Louise LabéLouise LabéLouise Labé, , also identified as La Belle Cordière, , was a female French poet of the Renaissance, born at Lyon, the daughter of a rich ropemaker, Pierre Charly, and his second wife, Etiennette Roybet...
, poetic soirée - 1974: Why Doesn't Anna's Dress Want to Come off by Tom Eyen
- 1974: Closes at the end of September.
Nouveau Carré Gaîté-Lyrique
- 1974: Opening of the circus School on October 15
- 1974, November and December: Les Comptoirs de la Baie d'Hudson by Jacques Guimet done by the "In and Out Theatre", Great Hall
- 1975, Edgar PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, done by the "Ballet-Théâtre Joseph Russillo", Great Hall:
- - January and February, Mémoires pour demain and Il était une fois comme toutes les fois
- - May, Fantasmes, original creation
- 1975, January to April: Old-Style Circus with the Gruss family, Great Hall
- 1975, March to April: Seven Weeks in Song with Roger Siffer, Dick AnnegarnDick AnnegarnDick Annegarn is a Dutch rock singer-songwriter who sings mostly in French, although on occasion Dutch and English...
, Jean-Marie Vivier and Monique Morelli, Serge Kerval and Anne Vanderlove, Gilles ServatGilles ServatGilles Servat is a French singer, born in Tarbes in southern France in 1945, into a family whose roots lay in the Nantes region of Brittany.He spent his early childhood around Nantes and Cholet. His music evoques the Isle of Groix, off the coast of Morbihan.His music was originally inspired by the...
, Great Hall - 1975, June to July: Dimitri ClownDimitri (clown)Dimitri . After changing his name, his official name is Jakob Dimitri. He is a well-known Swiss clown and mime.- Early life and training :...
, Great Hall - 1975, September: Histoire du soldatHistoire du soldatHistoire du soldat , composed by Igor Stravinsky, is a 1918 theatrical work "to be read, played, and danced" . The libretto, which is based on a Russian folk tale, was written in French by the Swiss universalist writer C.F. Ramuz...
by Igor StravinskyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
and Ramuz, done by the Solistes de Marseille, directed by Devy Erlich, Great Hall - 1975, September to October: Le Tableau, comic opera by Ionesco and Calvi, Great Hall
- 1975-1976, November to March: Lucrezia BorgiaLucrezia BorgiaLucrezia Borgia [luˈkrɛtsia ˈbɔrʤa] was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Valencian who later became Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei. Her brothers included Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia...
by Victor HugoVictor HugoVictor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
(presented at the Festival d'Avignon in August 1975), directed by Fabio Pacchoni, Great Hall - 1976, March: Hélène Martin Recital, Great Hall
- 1976, March: Henri Tachan Recital, Gruss big top
- 1976, October, November, December: When We Dead AwakenWhen We Dead AwakenWhen We Dead Awaken is the last play written by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Published in December 1899, Ibsen wrote the play between February and November of that year. The first performance was at the Haymarket Theatre in London, a day or two before publication.-Plot summary:The first act...
by Henrik IbsenHenrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
, adaptation by Maurice Clavel, Great Hall - 1977, January, February, March: The Lady from the SeaThe Lady from the SeaThe Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.Kvinnan från havet is a ballet by choreographer Birgit Cullberg, and based on Ibsen's play...
by Henrik IbsenHenrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
, Great Hall - 1977, April to May: A Doll's HouseA Doll's HouseA Doll's House is a three-act play in prose by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premièred at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month....
by Henrik IbsenHenrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
, done by the Ensemble Théâtral Mobile, Great Hall - 1977: Songs of BilitisSongs of BilitisThe Songs of Bilitis is a collection of erotic poetry by Pierre Louÿs and published in Paris in 1894 .The book's sensual poems are in the manner of Sappho; the introduction claims they were found on the walls of a tomb in Cyprus, written by a woman of Ancient Greece called Bilitis, a courtesan and...
by Pierre LouÿsPierre LouÿsPierre Louÿs was a French poet and writer, most renowned for lesbian and classical themes in some of his writings. He is known as a writer who "expressed pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection."-Life:... - 1977: Visit of René-Guy Cadou, poetic soirée
- 1977: Nuova Colonia de Luigi PirandelloLuigi PirandelloLuigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
- 1977: The Burial of a Boss de Dario FoDario FoDario Fo is an Italian satirist, playwright, theater director, actor and composer. His dramatic work employs comedic methods of the ancient Italian commedia dell'arte, a theatrical style popular with the working classes. He currently owns and operates a theatre company with his wife, actress...
(Mulhouse) - 1977: Closes at year's end
Jardin d'Acclimatation
- Just one seasonSeasonA season is a division of the year, marked by changes in weather, ecology, and hours of daylight.Seasons result from the yearly revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the plane of revolution...
, from 1978 to 1979.
Carré Silvia Monfort Vaugirard
- 1979: La Cantate à trois voix by Paul ClaudelPaul ClaudelPaul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
(Abbatiale de Rouen) - 1979: La Fourmi dans le corps by Jacques AudibertiJacques AudibertiJacques Audiberti was a French playwright, poet and novelist and exponent of the Theatre of the Absurd.He was born in Antibes, France. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine...
- 1979: The Noon Terrace by Maurice ClavelMaurice ClavelMaurice Clavel is a French writer, journalist and philosopher born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins .-Youth:...
- 1980: Conversation dans le Loir-et-Cher de Paul Claudel INA Archives: Daniel Gélin and Silvia Monfort in Conversation dans le Loir-et-Cher (TF1, 1988)
- 1981: Ariane at Naxos by Georg Brenda (Rennes and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées)
- 1981: Breakfast at Desdemona's by Janus Krasinski
- 1981: The Duchess of MalfiThe Duchess of MalfiThe Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then before a more general audience at The Globe, in 1613-14...
by John WebsterJohn WebsterJohn Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates... - 1982: PhèdrePhèdrePhèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
by RacineJean RacineJean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition... - 1983: Hot and Cold by Fernand Crommelynck
- 1984: The Persians by AeschylusAeschylusAeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
- 1984: Die Panne by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
- 1985: The Millionairess by George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
- 1985: Bajazet by Racine
- 1985: The Tower of Nesle by Alexandre Dumas, pèreAlexandre Dumas, pèreAlexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
- 1987: BritannicusBritannicusTiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus was the son of the Roman emperor Claudius and his third wife Valeria Messalina. He became the heir-designate of the empire at his birth, less than a month into his father's reign. He was still a young boy at the time of his mother's downfall and Claudius'...
by Racine - 1987: IphigénieIphigénieIphigénie is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by the French playwright Jean Racine. It was first performed in the Orangerie in Versailles on August 18th 1674 as part of the fifth of the royal Divertissements de Versailles of Louis XIV to celebrate the conquest of...
by Racine - 1988: Théodore by Corneille
- 1989: The Two Ways by Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
Directed by her
- 1965: ElectraElectra (Sophocles)Electra or Elektra is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career.Set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan...
by SophoclesSophoclesSophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
, adaptation by Maurice ClavelMaurice ClavelMaurice Clavel is a French writer, journalist and philosopher born on November 10, 1920 in Frontignan and who died on April 23, 1979 in Asquins .-Youth:...
(Tréteaux de France) - 1970: Electra by Sophocles, adaptation by Maurice Clavel (Halles de Paris)
- 1979: La Cantate à trois voix de Paul ClaudelPaul ClaudelPaul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
(Abbatiale de Rouen) - 1984: The Persians by AeschylusAeschylusAeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
(Carré Silvia Monfort Vaugirard) - 1987: IphigénieIphigénieIphigénie is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by the French playwright Jean Racine. It was first performed in the Orangerie in Versailles on August 18th 1674 as part of the fifth of the royal Divertissements de Versailles of Louis XIV to celebrate the conquest of...
by Racine (Carré Silvia Monfort Vaugirard) - 1988: Théodore by Corneille (Carré Silvia Monfort Vaugirard)
- 1989: The Two Ways by Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
(Carré Silvia Monfort Vaugirard)
Television
- 1959: BéréniceBéréniceBerenice is a five-act tragedy by the French 17th-century playwright Jean Racine. Berenice was not played often between the 17th and the 20th centuries. Today it is one of Racine's more popular plays, after Phèdre, Andromaque and Britannicus.It was first performed in 1670...
by RacineJean RacineJean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition... - 1960: PhèdrePhèdrePhèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
by Racine - 1960: BajazetBajazet (play)Bajazet is a tragedy by Jean Racine in five acts , in Alexandrian verse, first played at the Hotel de Bourgogne, on January 5, 1672, after Berenice, and before Mithridate. Like Aeschylus in The Persians, Racine took his subject from contemporary history, taking care to choose a far off location,...
by Racine - 1962: HelenHelen (play)Helen is a drama by Euripides, probably first produced in 412 BC for the Dionysia. The play shares much in common with another of Euripides' works, Iphigenia in Tauris.-Background:...
by EuripidesEuripidesEuripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most... - 1962: The Night of Fire by Marcelle Maurette
- 1963: The Infernal Machine by Jean CocteauJean CocteauJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
- Directed by Claude Loursais - 1965: King LearKing LearKing Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
by Shakespeare - 1967: The Trojan war will not take placeThe Trojan war will not take placeThe Trojan War Will Not Take Place is a play written in 1935 by French dramatist Jean Giraudoux. In 1955 it was translated into English by Christopher Fry...
by Jean GiraudouxJean GiraudouxHippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work is noted for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy... - 1971: The Bunker by Alain DecauxAlain DecauxAlain Decaux was born on 23 July 1925 in Lille, France. A historian by profession, he was elected to the Académie française on 15 February 1979.-Bibliography:* 1947 * 1949 ...
- 1975: Why Doesn't Anna's Dress Want to Come off by Tom Eyen - Directed by Armand Ridel
- 1978: The Marshal of Ancre by Alfred de VignyAlfred de VignyAlfred Victor de Vigny was a French poet, playwright, and novelist.-Life:Alfred de Vigny was born in Loches into an aristocratic family...
- 1980: Edgar PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, theatre-ballet by Joseph Russillo - 1980: Phèdre by Racine
- 1980: ElectraElectra (Sophocles)Electra or Elektra is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known, but various stylistic similarities with the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus lead scholars to suppose that it was written towards the end of Sophocles' career.Set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan...
by SophoclesSophoclesSophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides... - 1981: Conversation in the Loir-et-CherLoir-et-CherLoir-et-Cher is a département in north-central France named after the rivers Loir and Cher.-History:Loir-et-Cher is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Orléanais and...
by Paul ClaudelPaul ClaudelPaul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:... - 1982: Phèdre by Racine
- 1982: The Dream of Icarus, TV film by Jean Kerchbron
- 1986: Bajazet by Racine
- 1986: The Tower of Nesle by Alexandre Dumas, pèreAlexandre Dumas, pèreAlexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...