Tristan Bernard was a French playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

, novelist, journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

.

Life

Born Paul Bernard into a Jewish family in Besançon

Besançon

Besançon , is the capital and principal city of the Franche-Comté region in eastern France. It had a population of about 237,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2008...

, Doubs, Franche-Comté

Franche-Comté

Franche-Comté the former "Free County" of Burgundy, as distinct from the neighbouring Duchy, is an administrative region and a traditional province of eastern France...

, France, he was the son of an architect. He left Besançon at the age of 14 years, relocating with his father to 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...

, where he studied at the Lycée Condorcet

Lycée Condorcet

The Lycée Condorcet is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France, located at 8, rue du Havre, in the city's IXe arrondissement. Since its inception, various political eras have seen it given a number of different names, but its identity today honors the memory of the Marquis de Condorcet. The...

, which was noted for its numerous literary alumni.

In 1888 was born his son Jean-Jacques Bernard

Jean-Jacques Bernard

Jean-Jacques Bernard was born in Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise and died in Paris.French playwright and chief representative of what became known as l’école du silence or, as some critics called it, the art of the unexpressed, in which the dialogue does not express the characters’ real attitudes...

, also a dramatist.

He studied law, but after his military service he started his career as the manager of an aluminium smelter. In the 1890s he also managed the Vélodrome de la Seine at Levallois-Perret

Levallois-Perret

Levallois-Perret is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.-Name:The name Levallois-Perret comes from two housing developments, Champerret and Village Levallois , and which resulted in the incorporation of the...

 and the Vélodrome Buffalo

Vélodrome Buffalo

The Vélodrome Buffalo and Stade Buffalo were cycling tracks in Paris. The first existed from 1893 until World War I, the second from 1922 until 1957....

, whose events were an integral part of Parisian life, being regularly attended by personalities such as Toulouse Lautrec

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...

. He reputedly introduced the bell to signify the last lap of a race.

After his first publication in La Revue Blanche during 1891, he became increasingly a writer and adopted the pseudonym Tristan. His first play, Les Pieds Nickelés (Nickel-plated Feet), was a great success and was representative of the style of his later work (generally humorous). He became known especially for his writing for vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

-type performances, which were very popular in France during that time. He also wrote several novels and some poetry.

Bernard is remembered mainly for witticisms, particularly from his play Les Jumeaux de Brighton (The Brighton Twins).

In 1932, he was a candidate for the Académie Française

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,...

, but was not elected, receiving only 2 votes of a total of 39.

Drancy

He was interned during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 at the Drancy deportation camp. When Gestapo agents were at his door he turned to his wife, who was crying, and said "Don´t cry, we were living in fear, but from now on we will live in hope".

Public protest of his imprisonment caused his release during 1943. He died in Paris four years later, allegedly of the results of his internment, and was buried in Passy cemetery.

Legacy

The Théâtre Tristan Bernard in Paris is named in his honor.

His descendants have achieved some notoriety. His son, Raymond Bernard

Raymond Bernard

Raymond Bernard was a French filmmaker and related to French playwright father Tristan Bernard and brother to Jean-Jacques Bernard...

 became an influential French filmmaker (using as scripts, a number of works authored by his father) while his son Jean-Jacques Bernard published a memoir of his father during 1955 titled Mon père Tristan Bernard (My Father, Tristan Bernard). Tristan Bernard's grandson Christian Bernard

Christian Bernard

Christian Bernard , F.R.C., is the current Imperator of AMORC, a mystical Rosicrucian order. He became Imperator on 12 April 1990.-References:* *...

 is the current Imperator

Imperator

The Latin word Imperator was originally a title roughly equivalent to commander under the Roman Republic. Later it became a part of the titulature of the Roman Emperors as part of their cognomen. The English word emperor derives from imperator via Old French Empreur...

 of the Rosicrucian

Rosicrucian

Rosicrucianism is a philosophical secret society, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe...

 organization AMORC. One of his grand-nephews is Francis Veber

Francis Veber

Francis Paul Veber is a French film director, screenwriter and producer, and theater playwright. Many of his French comedies feature recurring types of characters, named François Pignon and François Perrin...

, a screenwriter, director and playwright whose films have been frequently remade or adapted in Hollywood

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

.

Plays

• Les pieds nickelés (1895)
• L'anglais tel qu'on le parle (1899)
• Triplepatte (1905)
• Les Jumeaux de Brighton (1908)
• Le petit café (1911)

Narrative works

• Vous m'en direz tant (1894) collaboration with Pierre Veber
• Contes de Pantruche et d'ailleurs (1897)
• Sous toutes réserves (1898)
• Mémoires d'un jeune homme rangé (1899)
• Amants et voleurs (1905)
• L'affaire Larcier (1924)
• Robin des bois (1935)
• Un mari pacifique
• Aux abois