Sacha Guitry

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Sacha Guitry, portrait by Léon Gard

Sacha Guitry (February 21, 1885 – July 24, 1957) was a French film actor, director, screenwriter and playwright.

[edit] Biography

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, he was the son of Lucien Germain Guitry (1860–1925), a major Parisian stage actor who spent nine years at the Michel Theater, in St. Petersburg, before returning to France. It was during this time in Russia that Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was born and nicknamed Sacha. As a five year old, he appeared on stage with his father. An intellect and a prolific writer with a sharp wit, by the age of 17 Guitry had already written the first of his 120 plays. In 1918 his theatrical production premiered in Paris to critical acclaim. Guitry's dramas include Nono (1905), Petite Hollande (1908, with a foreword by Octave Mirbeau), Les deux couverts (Comédie Française, 1913), La Pèlerine écossaise (1914), Deburau (1918), Jean de la Fontaine (1922), Un sujet de roman (1923). Also famous are Quadrille, Tôa, N'écoutez pas, Mesdames, Désiré, Faisons un rêve, Le Nouveau Testament, Beaumarchais and 100 others.

A prominent member of Parisian society, in 1919 Guitry married singing star Yvonne Printemps. Together they performed in a number of his plays, bringing the extremely popular 1925 production of Mozart to cities in North America, including New York City, Montreal and Boston. He wrote seven revues with Albert Willemetz, his best friend.

In addition to his famous plays, Guitry wrote and acted in many early films, and in 1935 directed for the first time. He went on to be recognized as one of the truly innovative directors, sometimes compared to Orson Welles because of his techniques and numerous innovations. Of the 30 films he directed, some of his most recognized are The Story of a Cheat (1937), Pearls of the Crown (1938) and Royal Affairs in Versailles in 1953.

In 1931, the government of France awarded him the Légion d'honneur. He was also a member of the Académie Goncourt. Following World War II he spent sixty days in prison for suspected collaboration with the Germans, but a post-War court cleared him completely of all the charges, and historians make clear now he had nothing to do with collaboration and even helped many people.

Guitry died in Paris in 1957. He is interred with his father, brother and his fifth wife in the Montmartre Cemetery, in the Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre. After his passing, a street was named in his honor in Paris and the city of Nice, France and Radio France named a studio for him.

[edit] Filmographie

Sacha guitry has taken part in all of his film as : director, screenplay wirter, dialogue writer, actor (except when mentionned).

1935 : Pasteur
1935 : Good Luck
1936 : Indiscretions
1936 : Confessions of a Cheat
1936 : Mon père avait raison
1936 : Let Us Do a Dream
1937 : Le Mot de Cambronne
1937 : Désiré
1937 : Pearls of the Crown
1937 : Quadrille
1937 : Champs-Elysses
1939 : Nine Bachelors
1941 : Mlle. Desiree
1942 : La loi du 21 juin 1907 (
1943 : De Jeanne d'Arc à Philippe Pétain
1943 : My Last Mistress
1943 : La Malibran
1947 : The Private Life of an Actor
1948 : Le Diable boiteux
1949 : Aux deux colombes
1949 : Toâ
1950 : Tu m'as sauvé la vie
1950 : The Treasure of Cantenac
1951 : Deburau
1951 : La Poison
1952 : Je l'ai été trois fois
1953 : The Virtuous Scoundrel (narrator)
1953 : Royal Affairs in Versailles
1955 : Napoléon
1955 : If Paris Were Told to Us
1957 : Lovers and Thieves (does not act)
1957 : Les Trois font la paire ( Sacha Guitry appears for the last time but only during the the générique)