Raimu

Biography: life and films

There are not many French actors (you can probably count them on the fingers of one hand) who have had the impact that Raimu had on both stage and screen. Through his solid presence, charisma and skill at projecting real emotion, Raimu had a unique ability to engage with and move audiences, who absolutely adored him. He was never the handsome juvenile or smooth matinee idol. More often than not, he was the honest everyman, the Monsieur Tout-le-monde that the ordinary man in the street could easily identify with. Not only was Raimu a superb dramatic performer, an actor with a capacity to bring an astonishing reality and pathos to his film and stage roles, he also had a penchant for comedy, and this would explain why he was so highly prized by filmmakers and had such a busy career. In the pantheon of French screen legends, few rank more highly than Raimu.

Raimu's real name was Jules Auguste Muraire. He was born into a modest family (his father was an upholsterer by trade) on 18th December 1883, in the French harbour town of Toulon. He had a rebellious and disruptive temperament from an early age and often got himself into trouble at school. His father wanted him to follow him in his profession, but Raimu's natural inclinations were towards the world of show business. He was sixteen years old when, a year after his father's death, he began his artistic career under the name Rallum, performing in cafés and pubs in and around his home town. Ten years on, now with the stage name Raimut (a verlan take on his real surname), he was established as a comic performer, helped by his imitations of his idols Félix Mayol and Polin. It was Mayol who gave a boost to the young Jules Muraire's career by bringing him to Paris to appear in revues. By 1914, now billed as Raimu, he was landing gigs in some of the capital's most popular nightclubs and music halls, including the Folies Bergère and the Casino de Paris.

Invalided out of the war in 1915, Raimu resumed his artistic career in Paris, and found his first important acting role the following year in a stage production of Sacha Guitry's Faisons un rêve. Over the next decade, he would develop his art as a theatrical performer, distinguishing himself in such plays as Paul Armont's L'École des cocottes, Sacha Guitry's Le Blanc et le noir and Yves Mirande's Édith de Nantes. Throughout the 1920s, Raimu shunned the new medium of cinema, although he had appeared in a number of silent films in the previous decade, beginning with the short Le Fumiste (1912). It wasn't until 1931 that Raimu took his first noteworthy screen role, in Marc Allégret's Le Blanc et le noir (1931).

One of the important milestones in Raimu's career came in 1929, when the young playwright Marcel Pagnol cast him in a leading role in his play Marius. Performed at the Théâtre de Paris, the play was such a hit with the critics and the public that it made Raimu's name and ensured he would be cast in the same role in the film that Pagnol subsequently produced, Marius (1931). The popularity of this film and its sequel Fanny (1932) made Raimu an overnight film star, and also established his screen persona, that of the avuncular everyman coping as best he can with the tragedies of existence, bruised but never beaten by misfortune. Over the following decade, many of the films that Raimu starred in were competent adaptations of stage plays he had already appeared in, including La Petite chocolatière (1932), Ces messieurs de la santé (1934) and Le Roi (1936). Marcel Pagnol gave him some of his best screen roles, in films that have since become enduring classics - La Femme du boulanger (1938) and La Fille du puisatier (1940).

Raimu demonstrated his versatility, his ability to play both comedy and drama, in a wide range of films, which include the lavish historical piece Gaspard de Besse (1935), amiable comedy Tartarin de Tarascon (1934) and dark psychological drama L'Étrange Monsieur Victor (1938). During the Nazi Occupation of France, Raimu's talents and popularity would have made him a big catch for the German-run company Continental Films, but as it turned out he only made one film for the company: Les Inconnus dans la maison (1942). In 1944, after an absence of almost ten years, and now a member of the Comédie-Française, Raimu made a brief return to the stage, playing the lead in Pierre Bertin's production of two Molière plays - Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Le Malade imaginaire. This was followed by his final stage appearance in 1946, in Tristan Bernard's L'Anglais tel qu'on. Raimu returned to cinema for René Le Hénaff's Les Gueux au paradis (1946) but he made only one film after this, Pierre Billon's L'Homme au chapeau rond (1946). This was when the curtain came down, as abruptly and as mercilessly as a guillotine, on a great career.

It was in March 1946 that Raimu was involved in the car accident that would ultimately cost him his life. Although he survived the accident, he incurred several broken bones. After almost two months in hospital, he was finally discharged, apparently in good health. Four months later, he was re-admitted to hospital for what should have been routine treatment on his tibia. During the operation, he suffered a fatal heart attack, most likely through an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic. Raimu died on the operating table, on 20th September 1946. News of the actor's untimely death came as a shock and provoked a national outpouring of grief across France - as much was apparent at his funeral service at the church Saint-Philippe-du-Roule in Paris, which was attended by thousands of well-wishers.

In a moving speech, Marcel Pagnol said about his former friend and collaborator, 'One cannot make a speech on the grave of a father, a brother or a son. You were all three at the same time.' Raimu, whom Orson Welles considered to be the greatest actor in the world, took his leave when he was at the height of his popularity and powers as a performer. Now he lies in a cemetery in his town of birth, Toulon, buried but by no means forgotten. It was cinema that Raimu devoted so much of his energies to when he was alive, and cinema now repays him by ensuring he lives on, preserving not just the memory but also the work of one of the finest actors the world has known.

Filmography

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