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Sacha Guitry is a Actor, Director, Scriptwriter and Producer French born on 20 february 1885 at Saint Petersburg (Russie)

Sacha Guitry

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Birth name Alexandre Georges Pierre Guitry
Nationality France
Birth 20 february 1885 at Saint Petersburg (Russie)
Death 24 july 1957 (at 72 years) at Paris (France)
Awards Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur‎, Officier de la Légion d'honneur, Commandeur de l'ordre de Saint-Charles

Alexandre-Pierre Georges "Sacha" Guitry ([gitʁi]; 21 February 1885 – 24 July 1957) was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre. He was the son of a leading French actor, Lucien Guitry, and followed his father into the theatrical profession. He became known for his stage performances, often in boulevardier roles, in the many plays he wrote, of which there were more than 120. He was married five times, always to rising actresses whose careers he furthered. Probably his best-known wife was Yvonne Printemps to whom he was married between 1919 and 1932.

Guitry's plays range from historical dramas to contemporary light comedies. Some have musical scores, by composers including André Messager and Reynaldo Hahn. When silent films became popular Guitry avoided them, finding the lack of spoken dialogue fatal to dramatic impact. From the 1930s to the end of his life he enthusiastically embraced the cinema, making as many as five films in a single year.

The later years of Guitry's career were overshadowed by accusations of collaborating with the occupying Germans after the capitulation of France in the Second World War. The charges were dismissed, but Guitry, a strongly patriotic man, was disillusioned by the vilification by some of his compatriots. By the time of his death his popular esteem had been restored to the extent that 12,000 people filed past his coffin before his burial in Paris.

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 Amadeus 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 popular and 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), and he produced a commemorative tribute book to the president of the Etat Français 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.

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