Sacha Guitry

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Sacha Guitry

Guitry with Yvonne Printemps in 1922
Born Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry
February 2, 1885
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Died July 24, 1957 (72)
Paris, France
Occupation Film director, actor, playwright, screenwriter
Years active 1914=1957
Spouse Charlotte Lysès (1907-1915)
Yvonne Printemps (1932-1934)
Jacqueline Delubac (1938-1939)
Geneviève Guitry (1944-1949)
Lana Marconi (1949-1957)

Alexandre-Pierre Georges (Sacha) Guitry (21 February 1885 – 24 July 1957) was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Guitry was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1885, the son of the well-known actor Lucien Guitry. Sacha was first on stage at age five. He developed a charming, witty stage persona, often appearing in period-dress light comedies, for instance his 1925 pastiche Mozart, which contains a story about the fictional adventures of Wolfgang Mozart on a visit to Paris. In his 1937 film Pearls of the Crown he plays four roles, one of them being Napoleon III.

Both enormously popular and enormously productive through the 1920s, Guitry was responsible for 124 plays (some written in less than three days), more than 30 books, and a heavy schedule of performances and appearances. In 1919 he married actress Yvonne Printemps, but it was his third marriage, to actress Jacqueline Delubac, in 1935, that encouraged Guitry to document his stage performances on film. He directed 33 movies, and married twice more.

Guitry's career took a dark turn during the Nazi occupation. The crisis did not slow the pace of his career; he was accused of accepting special favors (the return of his confiscated villa, for instance, and the rare privilege of being allowed to drive on Sunday),[1] and he produced a commemorative tribute book to the president of the Nazi puppet state Vichy France, Marshal Philippe Pétain, 1429-1942 - From Joan of Arc to Philippe Petain, and presented it in an opera gala in June 1944. Upon the liberation of France, Guitry was among the first arrested, by a self-appointed militia, and was imprisoned for two months. Officially absolved in 1947, he expressed regret at the absence of a formal trial.

True or not, those accusations clung to him. His career and reputation went into sharp decline after the war. A recent critical re-assessment began with a 2010 reissue of four of his films by Eclipse (DVD) a division of the Criterion Collection.[2]

In 2011 (17 and 18 November), an auction sale with works by Sacha Guitry was organized in Hôtel Drouot (Paris) and considered as the most important since the artist's death.[3]

Sacha Guitry, portrait by Léon Gard

[edit] Filmography

Except when mentioned, Guitry took part in all of his films as director, screenplay writer, dialogue writer, and actor.

[edit] Quotes

  • "Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness" - Sacha Guitry

[edit] Usage

His surname has become synonymous with "Witty". It is unknown if this is because of the similarity in sound between the two words. [4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Spotts, Frederic, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation.
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ "Sacha Guitry sous le feu des enchères", Jean-Pierre Thiollet, France-Soir, 18 November 2011
  4. ^ Mills, Arthur. Artists and Influence: France. 

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sacha Guitry
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sacha Guitry
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sacha_Guitry&oldid=481508313"
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