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Marcel Pagnol

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Marcel Pagnol (February 28, 1895 – April 18, 1974) was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. He was the first filmmaker to be elected as a member of the Académie Française in 1946.

Biography

Born February 28, 1895 in Aubagne, Bouches-du-Rhône département, in southern France near Marseille, the son of school teacher Joseph Pagnol and seamstress Augustine Lansot, Marcel Pagnol grew up in Marseille with his younger brothers Paul, René, and younger sister Germaine.

He learned how to read at a young age to his father's amazement but his mother did not allow him to touch a book until he was six "for fear of cerebral explosion". During this time he spent many summers with his family in a house in the sleepy Provençal village of La Treille in the hills near Aubagne.

At the age of 15, he wrote his first play and followed in his father's footsteps and became an English teacher for secondary schools. However, he stopped teaching when he went to Paris, instead, devoting his life to playwriting. His first adult play, Merchants of Glory, was produced in 1924. In 1929 he wrote Marius for the Paris Theatre. Marius would also be later turned into a film in 1931, Pagnol's first film.

In 1916, he married Simone Coline in Marseille, to the displeasure of his father Joseph. In 1945 he married Jacqueline Bouvier.

Marcel Pagnol was elected a member of the Académie Française in 1946. He was the first film maker ever to receive this honour.

He died in Paris on April 18, 1974. He is buried in the municipal cemetery at La Treille, along with his mother and father, brothers, and wife. His boyhood friend, Baptistin Magnan (Lili des Bellons in the autographies), died at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 and is buried nearby. Pagnol's novel L'Eau des collines was adapted from his two films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources (Manon of the Springs) made in the early 1950s and starring his wife. These films were remade to international acclaim in the 1980s by Claude Berri. Pagnol's affectionate reminiscences of childhood, "La Gloire de mon père" and "Le château de ma mère" were filmed successfully by Yves Robert in 1990.

Bibliography

Filmography, as director

References

External links

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