In 1972, Jer­ry Lewis made the ill-con­sid­ered deci­sion to put in writing, direct, and star in a film about a Ger­man clown in Auschwitz. The end result was so terrible that he nev­er allowed its launch, and it fast­ly acquired the repute—together with dis­as­ters like George Lucas’ Star Wars Hol­i­day Spe­cial—as one of many greatest mis­takes in film his­to­ry. Some­how, this cau­tion­ary story didn’t dis­suade the daring Ital­ian come­di­an Rober­to Benig­ni from mak­ing a movie with a some­what sim­i­lar premise, 1997’s Life Is Beau­ti­ful, during which he performs a father in a con­cen­tra­tion camp who enter­tains chil­dren with com­ic stunts and antics to dis­tract them from the hor­rors throughout them.

That movie, by con­trast, was a com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal suc­cess and went on to win the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1998 and three Acad­e­my Awards the fol­low­ing yr, a tes­ta­ment to Benigni’s sen­si­tiv­i­ty to his sub­ject, in a display­play half­ly based mostly on the mem­oirs of Rubi­no Romeo Salmoni. It’s a received­der that anoth­er real-life sto­ry of a com­ic genius who used his tal­ents not solely to enter­tain chil­dren dur­ing WWII, however to save lots of them from the Nazis has some­how nev­er been made right into a fea­ture movie—and espe­cial­ly sur­pris­ing giv­en the stature of the person in ques­tion: Mar­cel Marceau, essentially the most well-known mime in his­to­ry.

As we be taught within the Nice Massive Sto­ry video above, Marceau was 16 years previous in 1940 when Ger­man sol­diers marched into France. His “little one­hood finish­ed unexpectedly,” says Shawn Wen, creator of a recent book about Marceau. His father died in Auschwitz and each Marceau and his broth­er “have been concerned within the warfare effort towards the Nazis.” In a single sto­ry, Marceau dressed a gaggle of chil­dren from an orphan­age as campers and walked them into Switzer­land, enter­tain­ing all of them the best way, “to the purpose the place they might pre­have a tendency as in the event that they have been happening vaca­tion somewhat than flee­ing for his or her lives.”

In anoth­er sto­ry, Marceau some­how con­vinced a gaggle of Ger­man sol­diers to sur­ren­der to him. “It appears as if this nat­ur­al knack for act­ing,” says Wen, “finish­ed up becom­ing part of his contain­ment within the warfare effort.” Dur­ing the warfare, Marceau was “mim­ing for his life,” and the lives of oth­ers. Mime has been the butt of many jokes over time, however Wen sees in Marceau’s silent per­for­mances a way of convey­ing human­i­ty togeth­er with an artwork that tran­scends lan­guage and nation­al­i­ty. Study extra about how Marceau began his mime career dur­ing the Nazi occu­pa­tion at our pre­vi­ous post here.

Observe: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this publish appeared on our website in 2018.

Relat­ed Con­tent:  

How Mar­cel Marceau Start­ed Mim­ing to Save Chil­dren from the Holo­caust

Watch Mar­cel Marceau Mime The Mask Mak­er, a Sto­ry Cre­at­ed for Him by Ale­jan­dro Jodor­owsky (1959)

Mar­cel Marceau Mimes the Pro­gres­sion of Human Life, From Birth to Death, in 4 Min­utes

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian based mostly in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness