Guitry, Sacha 1885-1957

views updated

Guitry, Sacha 1885-1957
(Alexandre-Georges Pierre Guitry)

PERSONAL:

Born February 21, 1885, in St. Petersburg, Russia; died July 24, 1957, in Paris, France; son of Lucien Guitry (an actor); married Charlotte Lysès (an actor), August 14, 1907 (divorced July 17, 1918); married Yvonne Printemps (an actor), April 10, 1919 (divorced November 7, 1934); married Jacqueline Delubac (an actor), February 23, 1935 (divorced December 13, 1939); married Geneviève de Séréville, July 4, 1940 (divorced, April, 1944); married Lana Marconi, November 25, 1949.

CAREER:

Writer, director, producer, actor. Wrote acted in, and directed over 120 plays, including Nono, Deburan, Jean de la Fontaine, and Mozart. Director of thirty films (many of which he also acted in), including The Story of a Cheat, 1937, The Pearls of the Crown, 1938, Quadrille, 1938, Poison, 1951, and Royal Affair in Versailles, 1958.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Legion of Honor, France, 1931; elected member, Académie Goncourt; Best Screenplay, Venice Film Festival, 1937, for Pearls of the Crown. Street named in his honor, Nice, France, and a studio named for him, Radio France.

WRITINGS:

If Memory Serves: Memoirs of Sacha Guitry, Kessinger Publishing (New York, NY), 2005.

Also the author of over 130 plays and numerous films, including Poison.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sacha Guitry, who died in 1957, was an actor, playwright, screenwriter, and director. Guitry has often been called the French Orson Welles, for he directed numerous films, many of which he also acted in and wrote. Before turning to film in 1935, he also authored over one hundred plays, acting in a large number of them. As noted on the Web site of the Embassy of France in the United States, Guitry's "filmmaking, much of it an idiosyncratic blend of historical narrative and musical extravaganza, was once disparaged by critics but is now considered an innovative precursor to French New Wave cinema." Indeed, decades after his death, Guitry still proves to be an inspiration for audiences and filmmakers alike. Retrospectives of his films show at museums and finearts theaters, and his movies and writings have spawned remakes and adaptations. For example, the 2001 French movie, A Crime in Paradise is based on Guitry's 1951 movie, Poison, while the 1997 film, Beaumarchais, uses Guitry's unfinished stage play as its source.

Guitry was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1885, the son of a French actor living abroad. Raised in Russia, Guitry attended almost a score of schools before finishing his education at the age of seventeen, the year he also completed his first stage play. The 120 plays he wrote in his lifetime were largely vehicles for Guitry the actor. As an actor, he was known for his wit and fine voice, often playing romantic leads. Though he wrote and directed his first silent movie in 1915, he did not begin his cinematic career until 1935 with Bonne Chance. In the United States, Guitry is best known for comedies such as The Story of a Cheat and The Pearls of the Crown, both from the 1930s. However, after World War II (Guitry was imprisoned for a time in 1945 for collaboration with the Nazis), he turned to more serious subjects. His 1951 film Poison, for example, is a black comedy about a husband and wife who plot to kill one another. When the husband succeeds, he also manages—through a quirk in the French legal system—to be acquitted even though he admits his crime. Writing in Variety half a century after that film's release, Lisa Nesselson still found Poison "razorsharp." Nesselson further noted, "Guitry managed to etch an incisive portrait of not-always-sophisticated city slickers vs. not-so-dopey country bumpkins, while also getting in some crafty digs at the media and the law."

Guitry was awarded the French Legion of Honor, one of the highest awards of his country. In a career spanning five decades, he helped to define French cinema and left behind a body of work that offers a witty and sometimes acerbic glance at French life and history. As Florence King noted in the National Review, Guitry was fond of saying, "You can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Guitry, Sacha, If Memory Serves: Memoirs of Sacha Guitry, Kessinger Publishing (New York, NY), 2005.

PERIODICALS

French Cultural Studies, October, 2005, Ivone Marguilies, "Sacha Guitry, National Portraiture and the Artist's Hand," pp. 241-258.

National Review, November 11, 1996, Florence King, "The Misanthrope's Corner," p. 68; December 8, 1997, John Simon, review of Beaumarchais, p. 56.

New York Times, October 24, 1997, Janet Maslin, review of Beaumarchais.

Variety, April 2, 2001, Lisa Nesselson, review of A Crime in Paradise, p. 20; January 13, 2003, Alison James, "French Films Make Global Gains," p. 29.