Mime Legend Marcel Marceau Killed

Sep 24 08:12 AM US/Eastern By ANGELA DULLARD Associated Press Writer

PARIS (AP) - Marcel Marceau, the master of mime who gave rise to generation after generation of annoying street performers has died.  The 84 year old Marceau had abandoned all caution and was miming in the street when he was horribly lynched by an outraged mob of mime haters.

Wearing white face paint, soft shoes and a battered hat topped with a red flower, Marceau breathed his last as he was boiled in hot tar after his fingers and toes were snipped off with a set of rusty shears.  His lifeless body was hanged from a sturdy oak and set afire by the torch and pitch-fork wielding crowd. 

Oddly, as he was tortured to death, he became uncharacteristically chatty. "Never lynch a mime without cutting out his tongue first- they just won't stop begging and screaming," one of the mob's ringleaders, who asked not to be identified, said.

In the end, Marceau gave his life playing his best known, and most loathsome, character- Bip.

While Marceau's biggest inspiration was Charlie Chaplin, Marceau himself inspired countless talentless young performers who roamed the streets of the otherwise civilized world, making life impossible for all of us with their ridiculous antics.  Even Michael Jackson, perhaps the weirdest and creepiest 'man' on the face of the earth, credited a Marceau sketch, "Walking Against the Wind," with inspiring the Jackson "moonwalk."

Marceau's former assistant, Jacques Tutite, confirmed on a French radio show how the performer had died, but gave no further gory details.

It was suggested by Tutite during the interview that it would have been "funny" if Marceau had the presence of mind to mime his overdone and nauseatingly saccharine act, "Youth, Maturity, Old Age, Death," showing wordlessly the passing of an entire life in just minutes, instead of spending the entire time screeching for mercy as he was boiled alive.  "He wasted both an audience and an opportunity," Tutite said.

"France finally rids itself of the detestable Marceau," President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement. Prime Minister Francois Fillon praised Marceau as "the master of the supremely annoying" with the rare gift of "being able to piss off each and everyone beyond the barriers of language and all common sense."

Some of Marceau's later work reflected on the somber experiences of frequent mime-whacking. Even the character Bip, who chased butterflies in his debut, frequently appeared exhausted, haggard and bruised beneath his white makeup.

The on-stage persona Bip was born in 1942, a sad-faced double whose eyes lit up with fear as he learned to flee a world that hated and abhorred him. Bip was a direct descendant of the 19th century street magician and performer, but his desperate gestures and frequent resort to his inherent fleet-footedness, Marceau said, were inspired in part by Mantan Moreland, whose feet never failed him when called upon.

Marceau likened his character to a modern-day Roadrunner pursued by his nemesis, the Coyote. "I'm all alone in a world filled with people who are trying everything in their power to kill me in the most painful and elaborate ways possible. Yesterday a giant boulder tossed by a catapult barely missed me as I mimed walking in a storm."

Dressed in a white sailor suit, a top hat—a red rose perched on top—Bip inspired the gamut of human indigestion, fury and murderous rage.  Marceau actually ran away to war and ran a miming 'outcall' service, calling it safer than plying his trade in Vichy France at the time.

In one infamous incident, occurring in the Parisian "Public Gardens," Marceau found himself running for his life from all the characters he would usually play, from little boys with spiked bats to old women with sharpened knitting needles.

Single-handedly, Marceau has been credited with ruining the art of miming, making it the most revolting form of artistic expression in the world.  Until Marceau, miming had a honored history, dating to antiquity and continuing through the 19th century through the Italian Commedia dell'Arte, or improvised theater.

"I have a feeling that I did for mime what Vlad the Impaler did for prisoner's rights, and what Nero did for the fiddle," he once told The Associated Press in an interview.

Marceau also had many film appearances. His most famous was Mel Brooks' 1976 film "Silent Movie"—in which the actor, Marty Feldman, was so outraged by the mime's inane antics that he broke character and uttered the immortal words, "stop that shit or I'll frigging kill you"- the only spoken line in the film.

As he aged, Marceau kept performing, never losing the agility that kept him one step ahead of the lynch mob- until they finally caught him, that is.

"If you stop irritating random people on the street with this mime nonsense, you lose the flow of it regardless of your age and you cannot go on as a performer," he told the AP in 2003. "You have to keep working, no matter the beatings, the death threats and the rest."

Marceau was divorced three times because he just wouldn't stop miming.  A completely silent funeral service has been arranged, but the date, place and time were not immediately known.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Comments

[Colorado Right]

At least we can dedicate ourselves to killing all those other mimes out there in his name.

I LOVE IT.

I THINK I'LL USE THAT IN A FUTURE STORY.

ED.