Marcel Achard

Biography

French playwright, screenwriter, and actor. born Marcel-Auguste Ferréol in Sainte-Foylès-Lyon (Rhône) on July 5, 1899. The circumstances of his birth are both uncertain and unusual. At one point, Achard stated as fact that ""I was born thanks to a special authorization from the Pope and the President of the Republic: my father had married the daughter of his sister, so that my grandfather was, at the same time, my great-grandfather; my father, my great-uncle; and my mother, my cousin." As a teenager during the First World War, he became a schoolteacher. By 20, he was a prompter at the famous Parisian Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier and then a journalist for La Figaro. He began writing for the stage at 22 and had immediate success when theatrical manager Charles Dullin staged Achard's Voulez-vous jouer avec moâ? at the Atelier. Achard quickly became a very popular playwright, most of his works derived from traditions of the Commedia del'Arte. Although frequently criticized for the dreamy, romantic quality of his most popular works, Achard did stretch those boundaries. His play Adam was a controversial and realistic look at the life of a homosexual man, and though the play was scandalous for its time, it has been revived frequently in more recent times and seen as a powerful exposé. His 1962 comedy L'Idiote was transferred to the screen as the Blake Edwards-Peter Sellers hit A Shot in the Dark. Achard had several plays produced on Broadway, though only two (I Know My Love and A Shot in the Dark, adapted by S.N. Behrman and Harry Kurnitz, respectively) were hits. Throughout his career as a playwright, Achard also wrote screenplays and acted in films. His best-known screenplay, probably, was for the 1936 version of Mayerling. Although he had done some directing in collaboration with other directors, Achard successfully directed his first solo film, La Valse de Paris, a biography of Offenbach, in 1949. He served as head of the Cannes and Venice Film festivals during the period of 1958-1960. Elected late in life to the Académie française, Achard died from complications of diabetes at 75, in Paris, on September 4, 1974. His wife Lily survived him.