Pierre Olaf

Pierre Olaf, born Pierre-Olaf Trivier on 14 July 1928 in Caudéran, in the Gironde department of Bordeaux, France, was a French actor, cabaret artist, and clown who built an international career across stage, film, and television. He died on 16 September 1995. His small stature and distinctive owlish face made him a natural fit for comedic roles, and he began performing professionally on the stage in his late teens before transitioning into French cinema in his early twenties.

Olaf's earliest film appearances came in the 1950s, when he took the role of Sanchez in Marcel Aboulker's Le Trésor des Pieds-Nickelés (1950). Additional French film credits from that period include Miquette et sa mère (1950), Trois femmes (1952), Soyez les bienvenus (1953), Mam'zelle Nitouche (1954), and Ah ! les belles bacchantes (1954). On the stage, he became a regular presence in the comedic musical revues of director Robert Dhéry in Paris. His performance in Dhéry's 1954 Paris revue Jupon Volé caught the attention of French director Jean Renoir, who cast him as Roberto, a whistling pierrot, in the 1955 film French Cancan. The two developed a close friendship during the making of that film, one that lasted until Renoir's death in 1979. Olaf also starred as Philippe in Renoir's 1955 play Orvet at the Théâtre de la Renaissance.

The production that brought Olaf to international prominence was Dhéry's musical revue La Plume de Ma Tante. Adapted for the West End's Garrick Theatre by English songwriter Ross Parker from its original French-language Paris production, the show premiered in London in 1955 and ran for two and a half years. In 1957, Olaf appeared on BBC Television in Jack Hylton Presents The Robert Dhéry Show, which drew on material from the West End production. The revue subsequently transferred to Broadway's Royale Theatre, where it ran from 1958 to December 1960. Olaf portrayed multiple comedic roles across both the West End and Broadway productions and was among the show's principal comic talents. In 1959, the entire cast of La Plume de Ma Tante received a Special Tony Award, a non-competitive honor recognizing the production's contribution to Broadway.

Following the close of La Plume de Ma Tante on Broadway, Olaf took on the role of Jacquot in the original Broadway production of Bob Merrill's Carnival!, which starred Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jerry Orbach, and Kaye Ballard. The musical began out-of-town tryout performances at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. in March 1961, continued with further tryouts in Philadelphia, and opened at Broadway's Imperial Theatre on April 12, 1961. Olaf's portrayal of Jacquot earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 1962. He recorded the role on the 1961 original cast album, which reached number one on the Billboard album chart dated 17 July 1961. He later reprised the role of Jacquot at New York City Center in 1968 with the New York City Center Light Opera Company.

In 1964, Olaf returned to Broadway as Jerome Lahutte in Yves Jamiaque's play A Murderer Among Us. That same year he appeared Off-Broadway as Ferdinand Goddard in Cy Young's That Hat!, a musical adaptation of the farce The Italian Straw Hat, and was a featured entertainer at the 1964 New York World's Fair. In 1965, he starred as Raphael Bonnardon in the world premiere of Jean-Pierre Aumont's Madame Mousse, opposite Molly Picon in the title role, at the Westport Country Playhouse.

Beyond Broadway, Olaf pursued an active stage career in the United States during the early 1960s. In June 1962, he starred as Passepartout in the world premiere of Sig Herzig, Sammy Fain, and Victor Young's musical adaptation of Around the World in Eighty Days at the Saint Louis Municipal Opera, a production that co-starred Cyril Ritchard and subsequently transferred to the Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri. Between those engagements, he starred in Frank Lowe's stage adaptation of James Thurber's The 13 Clocks at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia in July 1962.

Olaf's American screen career began in late 1961 with a role as a clown in a television adaptation of Leonid Andreyev's He Who Gets Slapped, starring Richard Basehart and Julie Harris. He then portrayed the title role in the December 1961 television film The Enchanted Nutcracker, co-starring Carol Lawrence and Robert Goulet. In 1962, he held a recurring role in comedy sketches on Perry Como's television program Kraft Music Hall. Later television work included the recurring role of Milan Petros in the 1966 series The Trials of O'Brien, as well as appearances in the miniseries Lace (1984, as Serge), The Free Frenchman (1989, as Georges Auget), and the CBS miniseries Around the World in 80 Days (1989, as Captain Rondicherry).

His Hollywood film credits include Jacquot in the Tony Curtis comedy Wild and Wonderful (1964), Inspector Carnot in The Art of Love (1965) with James Garner and Dick Van Dyke, Dap in the Academy Award-winning musical film Camelot (1967), Chef in Don't Drink the Water (1969), Cozzier in The Gamblers (1970), Lacoste in Irish Whiskey Rebellion (1972), a Courtier in Cheech and Chong's The Corsican Brothers (1984), and the priest in American Dreamer (1984). He also starred in the 1966 Warner Brothers short film By the Sea.

Olaf maintained his connection to French film and television throughout his career. In 1964, he reunited with Dhéry to make Allez France!, released in the United States in 1966 under the title The Counterfeit Constable. He collaborated with Dhéry again on Vos gueules, les mouettes! a decade later. In 1970, he worked once more with Renoir on the television film-series The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir, portraying Gustave in the segment La Cireuse électrique. In 1984, he played Bob Cratchit in a French-language adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol for TF1 television. He appeared as a featured interviewee in the 1993 documentary film on Renoir, one of his final screen credits before his death in 1995.