Maurice Chevalier

Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Wikipedia.

Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Auguste Chevalier
Birthday	Wednesday, September 12, 1888
Birthplace	Paris, France
Died	Saturday, January 01, 1972
Occupation	Singer, actor, dancer

Chevalier, Maurice

(shəvăl`yā, Fr. mōrēs` shəvälyā`), 1888–1972, French singer and film actor. He made his debut in 1900 singing and dancing at the Casino de Tourelles, Paris. As the dancing partner of Mistinguett and as the star of several Paris music halls, he won his public by his charm and inimitable smile; by 1928 his reputation was international. He became famous for his portrayal of the debonair man-about-town, typically sporting a straw hat and a cane. Among his later films are Love in the Afternoon (1956), Gigi (1958), Can-Can (1959), and Fanny (1961).

Bibliography

See his autobiographies With Love (1960) and I Remember It Well (1970); study by G. Ringgold and D. Bodeen(1973).

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Chevalier, Maurice

Born Sept. 12, 1888, in Paris; died there Jan. 1,1972. French singer, film actor.

From 1912 to 1918, Chevalier worked in music hall comedy productions; he later performed on the stage as a chanteur. He became famous in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Chevalier began acting in motion pictures in 1911, appearing in such films as The Love Parade (1931), The Merry Widow (1934), Le Silence est d’or (1947; released in the USA under the title Man About Town), Love in the Afternoon (1956), Can-Can (1962), Fanny (1963), and Captain Grant’s Children (1965, in the role of Paganelle).

WORKS

Ma Route et mes chansons. Paris [1950],
Autobiographic Paris, 1956.
In Russian translation:
“Masterovoi Frantsii.” Teatr, 1974, nos. 7,8,11.

REFERENCE

Pagnol, M. and R. Carlès. Maurice Chevalier. Paris, 1950.

Mentioned in ?

References in periodicals archive ?

He said, 'This is my impression of Maurice Chevalier' and he lay on the floor.

I'd done nothing in 15 years then suddenly I was at No 1... it just went berserk; CHRISTIE REVEALS BREAKS BEHIND HIS COMEBACK Singer enjoying his return to limelight

In their act, the two older girls would get things rolling, then their kid sister would come on, do a musical number of her own, and dazzle the crowd by impersonating Greta Garbo, Zasu Pitts, Katharine Hepburn, and even Maurice Chevalier. While Betty and Mary played their instruments, Joanie closed with a mean dance routine.

Joan Leslie: a Yankee Doodle sweetheart

"I seem to have spent my life watching films where Maurice Chevalier said, 'To Maxim's,' so it was like going home really," Frears says.

Frears re-creates look of Belle Epoque in land of its glory

* Maurice Chevalier, owner of Morinville Home Hardware, Morinville, Alberta, Canada

NRHA Awards Program to honor seven young retailers of the year

This downtown sidewalk cafe offers all the Gallic charm of a Maurice Chevalier movie.

10:best: rise and shine; The 10 top breakfast dishes in town

Above all, remember the French actor Maurice Chevalier's response to the question as to how it felt to be getting older.

Getting older and older

A footnote about the dialogue: while the piece was sung in French, the spoken parts were delivered in a new translation that incorporated French words or phrases into almost every sentence, recalling the way Maurice Chevalier spoke in English.

Cincinnati Opera

"Thank heaven for little girls," sang Maurice Chevalier in the movie Gigi.

In praise of the senior traveler: Hanns Ebensten, the 82-year-old founder of the first gay tour company, tells why he prefers the salt-and-pepper set

Well-known importer Terry Theise characterizes the image of German wines among Americans this way: "When we say the name of a French wine, we feel like Maurice Chevalier. When we say the name of a German wine, we feel like Colonel Klink." The Hogan's Heroes references may be a bit dated, but it helps explain the surprisingly small market for wines from both Austria and Germany, despite their fast-growing popularity with sommeliers, restaurateurs and "serious" wine lovers.

Wines of the world: Germany & Austria

Specifically Cervantine critics who merit her extended attention are Carroll Johnson and his ego-psychology theory of Don Quixote's mid-life crisis and defense against the sexual tension aroused by this niece; Louis Combet's study of the Cervantine oeuvre as a whole under the sign of a Deleuzian masochism, Ruth El Saffar's various Jungian and feminist readings of Cervantes; the combination of psychoanalytic insights and folkloric/popular sources of Maurice Chevalier and Maurice Molho, and Edmund Cros' blend of psychocriticism and sociocriticism.

Mariarosa Scaramuzza Vidoni. I fantasmi di Cervantes

The idea of Frenchness still evokes elitism, privilege, the diplomat class, savoir-faire and luxury--the gamine Gigi learning how to spot good emeralds while Maurice Chevalier warbles leeringly nearby.

Spanish disquisition: or, how a bookish Gringa learned to stop worrying and love el idioma