Sometimes being a clown, mime, jester, or silly person doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable of being heroes. Marcel Marceau is probably the most famous mime of the 20th century. Although Marcel was French, he was famous around the world for his character Bip the Clown.
You have probably seen pictures of Marceau dressed as Bip. The character was based on Charlie Chaplin’s character the Little Tramp since Chaplin was Marceau’s hero and idol. Marceau was a professional mime, a clownish character for sure, but during World War II he proved that he could do much more than make children laugh; he could also save them.
Who Was Marcel Marceau?
Marceau was born Marcel Mangel in Strasbourg, France to a Jewish family. When Marcel was just 17 years old, Germany invaded and occupied France. As a Jewish teenager, he had to hide from the Germans, or else he would be sent to a camp where he would most likely die. Marcel and his family ended up fleeing to the town of Limoges in west-central France.
Yvonne Hagnauer was a director of a school, and Marcel pretended to be a worker at the school while also being taught in secret so that he would receive an education. Yvonne risked her life to save Marcel and his brother Alain. They even changed their last name from Mangel to Marceau to seem less Jewish and also as a reference to the French revolutionary hero François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers.
Marcel and the French Resistance
Marcel and Alain were not content with just hiding from the Germans. They wanted to do something, so they joined the French Resistance. The French Resistance had different groups, some were involved in intelligence gathering, and others were involved in guerilla operations which involved sabotage and targeted the German occupiers.
Marcel and Alain joined a special group dedicated to saving Jews in hiding throughout France by sneaking them out of the country. This work involved making contact with Jews in hiding, who were mostly children whose parents had left with caretakers when they were shipped off to the camps in the hopes that their children would survive.
Once in contact, they forged passports and other documents necessary to travel throughout and then out of France. Once everything was ready, Marcel and others in the Resistance would escort the Jews until they were able to cross the border into safety. Thousands of Jewish children were saved from dying.
It was during this period that Marcel realized he had special skills to entertain children. He began miming to keep them from being scared or realizing the danger they were in. It was important to be quiet in order to avoid detection by the Germans, so miming worked very well to engage with the children.
He was very successful at keeping the kids quiet and under control since he and the people he helped were never caught. Unfortunately, Marcel’s parents weren’t that lucky and were arrested; his father ended up dying at Auschwitz.
The Mime and the Hero
Marcel continued to do this dangerous work while under the threat of capture, torture, and death but managed to keep kids happy and entertained at the same time. In July 1944, Paris was liberated, and Marcel performed for the first time as a mime in front of an audience when he performed for 3,000 American troops.
The troops loved his performance, and once they realized that he spoke English and German, they hired him to be a translator. He ended up working for the famous General Patton as a liaison between the French and American armies as well as interrogating German prisoners of war.
When the war ended, Marcel went to Paris to study theater and began working as a professional mime. In 1947, he created the character Bip the Clown, which would be what would turn him into a successful celebrity. He eventually traveled all over the world performing for millions of people and bringing joy to them. He also wrote and illustrated children’s books as well as performed for live audiences and in dozens of movies and television shows.
Marceau was a professional mime which meant that his performances were completely silent except for the music that accompanied his performances. He discussed his role in saving children as part of the French Resistance, but he remained humble about the thousands of lives he saved.
In one of the few heartwarming stories to come out of occupied France, Marcel Marceau spent the rest of his life making people happy and bringing joy to children and adults all over the world. There is nothing more heroic than facing danger to save the lives of children and make others happy and laugh in a cruel and dangerous world.