Pierre Étaix
| Pierre Étaix | |
|---|---|
Pierre Étaix, 2011
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| Born |
23 November 1928 Roanne, France |
| Died | 14 October 2016 (aged 87) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Actor, director, clown |
| Years active | 1954–2016 |
| Spouse(s) | Annie Violette Fratellini (m. 1969–97) |
Pierre Étaix (French: [etɛks]; 23 November 1928 – 14 October 2016) was a French clown, comedian and filmmaker. Étaix made a series of short- and feature-length films in the 1960s, many of them co-written by influential screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. He won an Academy Award for best live action short film in 1963. Due to a legal dispute with a distribution company, these films were unavailable for a long period.
As an actor, assistant director and gag writer, Étaix worked with the likes of Jacques Tati, Robert Bresson, Nagisa Oshima, Otar Iosseliani and Jerry Lewis, the last of whom cast the comedian in his unreleased film The Day the Clown Cried.
Étaix was born in 1928 in Roanne, France. He was trained as a designer and introduced to the art of stained glass by Theodore Gerard Hanssen. Etaix basically built his career around the comic. He settled in Paris where he worked as an illustrator while performing in cabarets and music halls, including The Golden Horse, The Three Donkeys, ABC and the Alhambra, Bobino and Olympia, and that circus clown with Nino.
He met Jacques Tati in 1954 and worked as a draftsman and gagman on Tati's film Mon Oncle, including the creation of the poster, then as assistant director on the film (1958). He performed with his music-hall number, in 1960, in the sight of Jacques Tati: Feast Day at the Olympia. Pierre Étaix was a continuation of the great masters of slapstick (comedy film the silent era) as Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, Max Linder, Charlie Chaplin, and Laurel and Hardy admires limitless and that he graphically rendered many respects.
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