And let us have a moment of noise in memory of the great artist of pantomime, Marcel Marceau, who has left us at the age of 84. (Better get used to that joke…you'll be hearing it a lot in the days to come. In fact, we're probably also in for a lot of jokes about him dying because he called for help and no one heard him.) He taught or inspired countless other actors and also folks in related creative fields such as dance, painting and even cartooning. He was, as a friend of mine used to put it, the one mime people loved, not to be confused with all the rest, whom they hated.
Ordinarily here in one of my R.I.P. postings, I would insert some anecdote about meeting the deceased but I never had the pleasure — I assume it would have been a pleasure — of meeting Marceau. I did (I thought) harm one of his performances once as I recounted in an article elsewhere on this site. Here — I'll quote it to you. This occurred around 1965 or so…
…someone gave us tickets to The Red Skelton Show and we went over to CBS Television City, an austere black-and-white building not far from where I now live. We waited in line for what seemed like several weeks before being admitted to the stage and seated in the third row of the studio where they now do The Price is Right and where, decades later, I got to meet and work with Bob "Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan when I wrote for and he hosted CBS Storybreak.
That week's Skelton show was "A Concert in Pantomime" starring Red and his guest, the great French mime, Marcel Marceau. The taping began with a twenty-second sequence that merely called for Skelton and Marceau to walk to center stage and shake hands. They walked to center stage, shook hands, the Stage Manager yelled "Cut" and Skelton turned to the audience and said, "Wasn't that good?"
That may not sound like much here but, at the moment, it was hysterical. In fact, the audience was still chuckling as Mssr. Marceau took stage to begin taping several pantomime spots. He was in the middle of the fifth when my mind suddenly decided to be mean to me and replay Skelton's line.
Now, you have to imagine the scene: There is absolute silence in the room. On stage, one of the great artists of the world — the legendary Marcel Marceau — is miming some topic of dread seriousness and unbounded pathos. It was the moment of a baby duckling finding his mother dead from a hunter's rifle or something equally cheery. Not one person in the room is making a sound, but for the few fighting back tears at this moving, dramatic moment…
And I suddenly laughed. Out loud.
I tried not to. I held it in until it was leaking out my nostrils and ears but it escaped. I kept remembering Red Skelton going, "Wasn't that good?" and, finally, I couldn't hold it in any longer. I laughed right in the middle of Marcel Marceau's most dramatic, tragic stage moment.
As laughs go, it wasn't a loud one, actually…but it was loud enough for the illustrious Frenchman to hear. Ever the professional, he did not react to it with his body — but I could see the his eyes nail the third row with the slightest, tiniest gleam of "Who the hell is the idiot laughing at this?"
I looked around, as if I too was wondering who'd laughed. But I know I didn't fool him.
The look was so microscopic, I was the only one who saw it…but see it, I did. I saw it again, weeks later, when the show aired. My laugh wasn't heard and no one else in America saw Marceau throw that look, now past the third row and all the way to my home Zenith, just for me. But I saw it again. And every time since then — when I've seen Marceau on a movie screen or on TV — I've seen him subtly but carefully scanning the third row. Just in case I'm back.
Here's a link to an online obit. The man's achievement is perhaps best measured by the fact that everyone referred to him as "the world's greatest mime"…and almost no one could name a single other contender for that honor.