Marcel Lévesque

Biography

A Paris winter welcomed Marcel Lévesque on 6 December 1877, and from that first breath he seemed destined to live in front of an audience. By 1915 he had slipped into the shadowy world of Louis Feuillade’s serial sensation *Les Vampires*, returning twice more—*The Terrible Wedding* and *Satanas*—to outwit the criminal clan with a twinkle that made even villainy smile. Off-camera he shaped stories as deftly as he delivered lines, juggling the twin trades of actor and writer. Eight and a half decades later, on 16 February 1962, the curtain rang down in Couilly-Pont-aux-Dames, Seine-et-Marne, but the flicker of his performances still dances across silent screens.