Going quietly into that dark night ...

PARIS - Marcel Marceau, the master of mime who transformed silence into poetry with lithe gestures and pliant facial expressions that spoke to generations of young and old, has died. He was 84.

Wearing white face paint, soft shoes and a battered hat topped with a red flower, Marceau breathed new life into an art that dates to ancient Greece. He played out the human comedy through his alter-ego Bip without ever uttering a word.

Offstage, he was famously chatty. "Never get a mime talking. He won't stop," he once said.

A French Jew, Marceau escaped deportation to a Nazi death camp during World War II, unlike his father who died in Auschwitz. Marceau worked with the French Resistance to protect Jewish children, and later used the memories of his own life to feed his art. Link

   I have never had the aversion most people do to mimes - I enjoy them. Marceau was one of the best. I always considered pantomime just another form of clowning. There used to be so many very famous clowns, Emmett Kelly, Red Skelton, Marcel Marceau, even W.C. Fields was a clown once. There is a fine beauty in the subtle moves of a great clown. Today, we prefer daredevils and the outrageous, 'Jackass' inspired boorishness. So whenever I see a street mime, I'll stop and give them an audience and buck or two. The link goes to an article that documents a very long and storied life, it's worth reading.

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Comments

[David]

Mimes annoy me but, clowns freak me out. Maybe I shouldn't have read Stephen King's "It". John Wayne Gayce was a clown, too. I rest my case.

[Jim Mcfalls]

Mimes are human some good some bad.

Personally I don't know any and don't have anything against them

Watch out for guys with the middle name Wane

[Phoenix]

I'm with David 100%. I think "It" was the last of Stephen King's I read. For one, it was too long, and it was too creepy. After that, King sold out to the large publishing firms. yuk.