René Hiéronimus

Biography

Passionate about the theatre as of his school years, René Hiéronimus's career spanned six decades and a half. After appearing in a few plays, he was hired at the Comédie-Française, where he got to know Sacha Guitry. Having become a good friend of his, Guitry cast him in several of his plays ("Deux couverts" [1914], "Nono" [1918], "Pasteur" [1919]). As of 1917, René Hiéronimus also answered the call of cinema, without making a splash in the medium. Although a good character actor, it is to be admitted that Hiéronimus was mainly in forgettable movies, with the exception of La terre (1921), André Antoine's masterpiece, and, to a lesser extent, Henri Diamant-Berger's 1930s films (particularly his fairly good version of Three Musketeers (1932) and the respectable adaptation of Anatole France's Crainquebille (1934) by Jacques de Baroncelli). But it is thanks to his voice that René Hiéronimus has remained present to French audiences, especially children. An active dubber indeed, he has participated in three important Walt Disney Films, The Sword in the Stone (1963), as Archimedes, Merlin's grouchy owl, Mary Poppins (1964), as Umbrella-Parrot, and The Jungle Book (1967), as a monkey.