1877-1960
French born actor Paul Henri Capellani was born on this day in Paris. He was the younger brother of Albert Capellani and the uncle of director Roger Capellani, Albert's son. Interested in the dramatic arts (and art in general), Paul studied at a drama conservatory run by Charles Le Bargy from 1897 to 1901; he made his stage debut in 1902. By 1904, he was acting in Shakespeare plays on the stage. He made his film debut at Pathé in 1908 in Engulfed in Quicksands, a film directed by his brother. Paul was also interested in sculpture and was quite the promising young artist in this regard as well. Between 1908 and early 1915 he appeared in a large number of films under the Pathé umbrella, very many of them directed by his brother Albert. He also dabbled in writing--mostly adaptations of existing literature into film scripts--however he had one original scenario produced in 1910 with Les caprices de Marion. In 1915, he followed his brother Albert to World Pictures in the U.S., and appears in Albert's film Camille (1915) starring opposite of Clara Kimball Young. Mostly following his brother's career Stateside, he increasingly became disillusioned with the cinema acting experience in the U.S., especially after his brother's--and hence his--contract was up at World Film. He returned to France in 1919 to continue his stage career; though he also resumed his French cinematic career as well. He continued to act sporadically in films from 1919 to 1922, when he reignited his interest in working in sculpture. He was only in three more films after this point, two of them 1930's mono talking pictures. The last film in which he appeared was La lettre (1930). Paul Capellani remained an artist for the remainder of his life, after having moved to Cagnes-sur-mer France in 1930. He died there on the 7th of November in 1960 at the age of 83. I can find no information as to his burial.
No comments:
Post a Comment