André Charlot
Eugène André Maurice Charlot (26 July 1882 – 20 May 1956) was a French-born impresario known primarily for the musical revues he staged in London between 1912 and 1937. He later worked as a character actor in numerous American films.
André Charlot
26 July 1882
20 May 1956 (aged 73)
Actor and theatre manager
Florence Gladman (m. 1956)
2
Born in Paris, where his father was a theatre manager, Charlot made most of his pre-Second World War career in the West End of London, where he successfully imported and adapted the Parisian genre of intimate revue. He was known for his ability in talent spotting and played an important part in the early careers of many performers, composers and writers, including Jack Buchanan, Noël Coward, Jack Hulbert, Gertrude Lawrence, Beatrice Lillie, Jessie Matthews and Ivor Novello.
Life and career[edit]
Early years[edit]
Charlot was born in Paris on 26 July 1882, the eldest of three children of Jules Charles Maurice Charlot and his wife, Jeanne Sargine née Battu.[1] Charlot senior was a theatre manager and secretary of the Parisian Association of Theatre Directors; his wife was the daughter of a Swiss goldsmith. It was an affluent household, based in the Rue Boissy d'Anglas near the Place de la Concorde, with staff including an English governess for the children.[1][2]
Charlot studied first at the Lycée Condorcet and then at the Paris Conservatoire before working for his father. His biographer James Ross Moore records that by 1902 Charlot was writing theatrical news and gossip for Parisian magazines and travelling to London to sign talent for the Théâtre du Châtelet.[1] In 1905 he was appointed assistant manager, under his father, of the newly restored Théâtre du Palais-Royal,[3] after which he moved to the Folies-Bergère in 1908 as business manager.[1] In 1910 he opened a theatrical agency in Paris. On 5 August 1911 he married an English dancer, Florence Gladman (1891–1956).[2] They had one son and one daughter.[4]
Among those for whom Charlot's agency provided performers was the English actor and impresario George Grossmith, Jr. who invited Charlot to work for him in London. From 1912 to 1914 Charlot was the manager of the Alhambra in Leicester Square, one of the West End's larger theatres, with a capacity of 4,000,[5] presenting spectacular, large-scale shows.[1]
Peak years[edit]
In 1914 the British impresario Charles B. Cochran had an unexpected box-office success in the West End with what Moore calls a "bare-bones" revue.[1] His Odds and Ends, starring his discovery Alice Delysia, dispensed with spectacular décor and huge casts in favour of a more intimate style with modest staging – one critic commented that Cochran had spared no economy in mounting the revue.[6] The style appealed to the public and the show ran for more than 500 performances.[6] Charlot, familiar with intimate revue from his years in Paris,[4] was quick to follow Cochran's example in London.[7]