Pierre Fresnay

Pierre Fresnay, born Pierre Jules Louis Laudenbach on 4 April 1897, was a French stage and film actor whose career spanned more than five decades. His uncle, actor Claude Garry, encouraged him to pursue theater and film. He trained at the Conservatoire and became a pensionnaire of the Comédie-Française in early 1915, entering the company without a formal audition after initially joining what would later become the Théâtre de Paris. Following three years of military service in the French Army during World War I, he returned to the Comédie-Française in 1919.

During his tenure at the Comédie-Française, which lasted until 1926, Fresnay performed approximately 80 roles in Paris. He progressed from smaller parts to significant roles including Mario in Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard and the title role in Britannicus. After the armistice he appeared as Clitandre in Les Femmes savantes and took on a series of juvenile leads, among them Perdican in Musset's On ne badine pas avec l'amour, Valentin in Musset's Il ne faut jurer de rien, which he also directed, Fortunio in Musset's Le Chandelier, and the title role in Vigny's Chatterton. He was particularly noted for his work in the plays of Alfred de Musset. Following his departure from the Comédie-Française, he performed at the Variétés in productions by Guitry.

Fresnay took the title role in Marcel Pagnol's Marius in 1929, a production that ran for more than 500 performances. He reprised the character in the 1931 film adaptation and continued in the role through the subsequent two parts of Pagnol's Marseilles Trilogy, Fanny in 1932 and César in 1936. In 1927, he had also appeared in a production at the Theatre Royal in Huddersfield during Marion Fawcett's International Masterpieces Seasons, delivering his lines in French in a play called Game As He Played It.

In 1932, Yvonne Printemps became Fresnay's personal and professional partner following the dissolution of her marriage to Sacha Guitry. The two appeared together in eight films between that year and 1951, including Abel Gance's La dame aux camélias in 1934. They later starred together in Trois valses, the French adaptation of Oscar Straus's Drei Walzer, both on the Parisian stage and on film. Fresnay also portrayed the composer Offenbach in La Valse de Paris alongside Printemps. The two co-directed the Théâtre de la Michodière in Paris together until his death.

Fresnay appeared on Broadway between 1934 and 1935, with credits including Noah and Conversation Piece. He took over the lead role in Noël Coward's Conversation Piece in April 1934 when Coward moved on, earning strong reviews, and his stage partnership with Printemps drew considerable admiration during the run.

His film work included a brief appearance in Alfred Hitchcock's first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1934 and the role of the aristocratic French military officer Captain de Boeldieu in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion in 1937. In 1947, he played Vincent de Paul in Monsieur Vincent, a performance that earned him the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. He portrayed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer in Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer in 1952.

During the German occupation of France in World War II, Fresnay worked for the Franco-German film company Continental, appearing in Henri-Georges Clouzot's Le Corbeau among other productions. After the liberation, he was summoned, briefly imprisoned, and condemned by a purge tribunal as a result of this work. Le Corbeau, in which he played the leading role, was banned in France for more than twenty years due to perceived parallels between its narrative of poison-pen letters and the widespread denunciations that occurred in Occupied France.

Over the course of his career Fresnay appeared in more than 70 films and performed in approximately 130 plays. In 1954 he published his memoirs under the title Je suis comédien. He continued working in film and on stage through the 1960s and appeared in television productions in the 1970s. Fresnay died of respiratory problems on 9 January 1975 in Neuilly-sur-Seine at the age of 77 and is interred alongside Printemps in the local cemetery.