Charles Boyer(28 August 1899 -26 August 1978),French actor/acteur français

Profile Charles Boyer

Charles Boyer (28 August 1899 – 26 August 1978) was a French-American actor who appeared in more than 80 films between 1920 and 1976. After receiving an education in drama, Boyer started on the stage, but he found his success in American films during the 1930s. His memorable performances were among the era's most highly praised, in romantic dramas such as The Garden of Allah (1936), Algiers (1938), and Love Affair (1939), as well as the mystery-thriller Gaslight (1944). He received four Oscar nominations for Best Actor.

Charles Boyer, né le 28 août 1899 à Figeac, Lot et mort le 26 août 1978 à Phoenix, Arizona, est un acteur franco-américain. Après avoir débuté sa carrière en France, il devient l'un des acteurs français les plus célèbres à Hollywood durant les années 1930 et 1940. Se montrant aussi à l'aise dans les mélodrames, Le Jardin d'Allah (1936), Casbah (1938) et Elle et lui (1939), que dans les thrillers, Hantise (1944), il est nommé à quatre reprises à l'oscar du meilleur acteur.

Biographie Charles Boyer

Fils unique, Charles Boyer naît prématurément le 28 août 1899, boulevard Labernade à Figeac. Son père, Maurice Boyer tient un commerce familial de moissonneuses-batteuses, fourneaux de cuisine et faucheuses et sa mère, Louise, est mère au foyer. Dès son plus jeune âge, il a l'habitude de s'installer sur le comptoir où il récite des poésies ou des tirades pour amuser les clients. En 1909, son père décède brutalement. Peu de temps après, il assiste pour la première fois à une pièce de théâtre, Samson, dans laquelle se produit le comédien Lucien Guitry. Impressionné par son talent, il fait alors le vœu de devenir acteur, au grand désarroi de sa mère.

En 1914, la guerre éclate. Au cours de ces années noires, Figeac accueille des soldats convalescents. Pour les distraire, Charles Boyer crée et joue des spectacles. En 1917, à 19 ans, il part à Paris et s'inscrit à la Sorbonne. 

Après avoir suivi le conservatoire, Charles Boyer commence sa carrière par le théâtre. Mais c'est au cinéma, en France, notamment grâce à Marcel L'Herbier, puis à Hollywood, qu'il connaît ses plus grands succès comme « jeune premier » au cours des années 1920 et 1930.

En 1934, il épouse une jeune actrice britannique, Pat Paterson, rencontrée quelques semaines plus tôt lors d'une soirée entre deux tournages de Caravane.

Charles Boyer avec sa femme Pat Paterson

En 1938, il décroche le fameux rôle de Pépé le Moko, le voleur en fuite dans Casbah, un remake en langue anglaise du film français Pépé le Moko avec Jean Gabin, son grand rival.

Charles Boyer en 1936

Durant les années 1930 et 1950, il est une grande vedette et les studios se l'arrachent. 

Les plus grandes actrices de son époque sont ses partenaires :
-Bette Davis (L'Étrangère),
-Greta Garbo (Marie Walewska),
-Marlene Dietrich (Le Jardin d'Allah),
-Danielle Darrieux (Mayerling, Madame de...),
-Irene Dunne (Elle et lui),
-Olivia de Havilland (Par la porte d'or),
-Ingrid Bergman (Hantise, Nina),
-Michèle Morgan (Maxime). 

Ce rôle d'amoureux malgré lui le suivra toute sa carrière.

Charels Boyer avec Paulette Goddard et Olivia de Havilland dans le ilm Algiers 1938

« C'était l'élégance et la courtoisie personnifiées ».

----Ingrid Bergman dans son autobiographie Ma vie

Exempté de service militaire (étant orphelin de père), il revient à Figeac en 1939 pour s'engager dans l'armée. Au bout de onze semaines, il est démobilisé par le président du conseil, Edouard Daladier, qui lui demande de retourner aux États-Unis pour convaincre ses amis américains du show-business du bienfondé de cette guerre.

Peu de temps après, il fonde un centre intellectuel à Los Angeles à partir des six cents volumes de sa bibliothèque, la French Research Foundation, qui en 1945 comptait plus de quinze mille livres. Ce don de sa part avait pour mission en période de guerre d'incarner l'esprit français aux États-Unis. Durant la même période, il participe à la création et au financement du « French War Relief Committee » (Comité français de secours de guerre).

​Le 13 février 1942, il obtient la citoyenneté américaine. Peu disert sur ce sujet, Charles Boyer explique qu'il ne se sentait plus « en Amérique » mais « d'Amérique ». ​

Charles Boyer avec Danielle Darieux et Vitorio de Sica dans le film Madame de...

​Le 22 septembre 1965, son fils unique, Michael Charles Boyer, né en 1944, se suicide accidentellement d'une balle dans la tête en jouant à la roulette russe dans sa chambre à son domicile de Beverly Hills.  Charles Boyer se trouve alors à Paris.

Le 26 août 1978, Charles Boyer se suicide à l'aide d'une dose de barbituriques deux jours après le décès de sa femme, l'actrice Pat Paterson, des suites d'un cancer, et deux jours avant de fêter son 79e anniversaire.

​Il est enterré au cimetière Holy Cross à Los Angeles.

Biography Charles Boyer

Boyer was born in Figeac, Lot, France, the son of Augustine Louise Durand and Maurice Boyer, a merchant. Boyer (which means "cowherd" in the Occitan language) was a shy, small town boy who discovered the movies and theatre at the age of eleven.

During World War I, Boyer performed comic sketches for soldiers while working as a hospital orderly.

He went to the capital city to finish his education in Sorbonne, but spent most of his time pursuing a theatrical career.

In 1920, his quick memory won him a chance to replace the leading man in a stage production, Aux jardins de Murcie. He was successful. Then he appeared in a play La Bataille and Boyer became a theatre star overnight.

In the 1920s, he not only played a suave and sophisticated ladies' man on the stage but also appeared in several silent films.

​Boyer's first film was L'homme du large (1920), directed by Marcel L'Herbier. He focused on theatre work for a number of years, then returned to the screen. With the coming of sound, his deep voice made him a romantic star.

Boyer was first brought to Hollywood by MGM who wanted him to play the Chester Morris part in a French version of The Big House (1930), Révolte dans la prison (1931).

But His first English speaking role was The Magnificent Lie (1931) of Paramount directed by Berthold Viertel.

In early 1934, as production on Charlie Chan Goes To Egypt in which Pat Paterson starred was wrapping, French actor Maurice Chevalier persuaded his lifelong best friend Charles Boyer, to attend a Fox Studios post-New Year dinner party at which Pat Paterson was a guest. In interviews over the years, Boyer declared their meeting to have been a case of love at first sight. The two became engaged after two weeks of courtship and they married within four weeks of the party, on St. Valentine's Day, 14 February 1934, in Yuma, Arizona.

Boyer became an international star with Mayerling (1936), co-starring Danielle Darrieux and directed by Anatole Litvak. Boyer played Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria.

​In 1938, he landed his famous role as Pepe le Moko, the thief on the run in Algiers, an English-language remake of the classic French film Pepe le Moko with Jean Gabin, produced by Wanger. 

Boyer was making the movie in Nice when France declared war on Germany in September 1939. Boyer joined the French army.

By November, Boyer was discharged from the army and back in Hollywood as the French government thought he would be of more service making films.

Boyer became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1942. 

​In 1943, Boyer was awarded an Honorary Oscar Certificate for "progressive cultural achievement" in establishing the French Research Foundation in Los Angeles as a source of reference.
At the end of the year, on 9 December 1943, Charles Boyer's wife Pat  Paterson gave birth to their only child, Michael Charles Boyer, in Los Angeles, California.

In contrast to his glamorous image, Boyer began losing his hair early, had a pronounced paunch, and was noticeably shorter than leading ladies like Ingrid Bergman. ​

Charles Boyer en 1955

In 1948, Boyer was made a chevalier of the French Légion d'honneur. That same year, he made another film with Ingrid Bergman, Arch of Triumph (1948), which failed at the box office, which means Charles Boyer was no longer the box office star he had been.

​Boyer went to Broadway, where he made his first appearance in Red Gloves (1948–49), based on Dirty Hands by Jean-Paul Sartre, which went for 113 performances.

In 1951, he appeared on the Broadway stage in one of his most notable roles, that of Don Juan, in a dramatic reading of the third act of George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, for which he won Broadway's 1951 Special Tony Award.

​Boyer also moved into television as one of the pioneering producers and stars of the anthology show Four Star Playhouse (1952–56). It was made by Four Star Productions which would make Boyer and partners David Niven and Dick Powell rich.

Charles Boyer was nominated for the Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) in the 1963 Broadway production of Lord Pengo, which ran for 175 performances.

Two years later in 1965 his son Michael Charles Boyer killed himself accidentally at age 21 while playing Russian roulettev in his own room, and Boyer was finding it traumatic to continue living in Los Angeles so in March 1970 he decided to relocate to Europe.

Boyer's final performance was in A Matter of Time (1976) with Liza Minnelli and Ingrid Bergman, directed by Vincente Minnelli.

Charles Boyer's movie career had lasted longer than that of other romantic actors, winning him the nickname "the last of the cinema's great lovers.". And an International lover: In addition to French and English, Boyer spoke Italian, German, and Spanish.

During his prime years, Charles Boyer has played opposited the greatest female Hollywood stars such as:
-Claudette Colbert in The Man from Yesterday (1932), Private Worlds (1935), Tovarich (1937);
-Loretta Young in Caravan (1934);
-Marlene Dietrich (The Garden of Allah (1936)/Le Jardin d'Allah);
-Jean Arthur in History Is Made at Night (1937)​;
-Greta Garbo in Conquest (1937);
-Michèle Morgan in Orage (1938), Maxime (1958);
-Irene Dunne in Love affair(1939), When Tomorrow Comes (1939); Together Again(1944);
-Bette Davis in All This, and Heaven Too (1940);
-Danielle Darrieux in Mayerling, The Earrings of Madame de... /Madame de...(1953);
-Olivia de Havilland and Paulette Goddard in Hold back the Dawn(1941);
-Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight (1944); Arch of Triumph (1948)
-Joan Fontaine in The Constant Nymph (1943);
-Lauren Bacall in Confidential Agent (1945);
-Jennifer Jones in Cluny Brown (1946);
-Sophia Loren in ​What a Woman!(1956);
-Brigitte Bardot in La Parisienne (1957).

On 24 August 1978, Charles Boyer's wife Pat Paterson died in Phoenix, Arizona of brain cancer.

Two days later, On 26 August 1978, Boyer died by suicide with an overdose of Seconal while at a friend's home in Scottsdale. He was taken to the hospital in Phoenix, where he died. It was just two days before his own 79th birthday, 

​He was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, alongside his wife and son.

Charles Boyer with Brigitte Bardot in film Une Parisienne

In 1966, Boyer recorded a laid-back album called Where Does Love Go. The album consisted of famous love songs sung (or rather spoken) with Boyer's distinctive deep voice and French accent. The record was reportedly Elvis Presley's favorite album for the last 11 years of his life, the one he most listened to.

Charles Boyer and his wife Pat Paterson

Further interest

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