Marcel Marceau (22 March 1923 – 22 September 2007) was a French actor and mime most famous for his stage persona as "Bip the Clown." He referred to mime as the "art of silence," and he performed professionally worldwide for over 60 years. As a youth, he lived in hiding and worked with the French Resistance during most of World War II, giving his first major performance to 3000 troops after the liberation of Paris in August 1944. Following the war, he studied dramatic art and mime in Paris.

In 1959 he established his own pantomime school in Paris, and subsequently set up the Marceau Foundation to promote the art in the U.S. Among his various awards and honours, he was made "Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur" (1998) and was awarded the National Order of Merit (1998) in France. He won the Emmy Award for his work on television, was elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, and was declared a "National treasure" in Japan. He was friends with Michael Jackson for nearly 20 years, and Jackson said he would use some of Marceau's techniques in his own dance steps.

Biography

Marceau was married three times: first to Huguette Mallet, with whom he had two sons, Michel and Baptiste; then, to Ella Jaroszewicz, with whom he had no children. His third wife was Anne Sicco, with whom he had two daughters, Camille and Aurélia.

Artist and fellow mime Paulette Frankl released a memoir in August 2014 about her decades' long relationship with Marceau. Marcel & Me: A Memoir of Love, Lust, and Illusion, released in 2014.