French postcard by Editions Chantal, Paris, no. 500. Photo: Films Tobis. Charpin as Jollivet in Michel Strogoff (Jacques de Baroncelli, Richard Eichberg, 1936).
French postcard by Editions La Malibran, Paris / Saint-Dié, no. CF 22. Raimu, Fernand Charpin, Paul Dullac and Robert Vattier in Marius (Alexander Korda, 1931), written by Marcel Pagnol. Caption: The card game.
French postcard.
Marcel Pagnol's Marseille trilogy
Fernand Charpin was born in 1887 in Marseille as the son of a gendarme. He grew up in Venelles, a village near Aix-en-Provence where his father was employed. Charpin fought in the First World War as a sergeant in the infantry. Taken prisoner of war in the Argonne in June 1916 and interned in Germany, he was repatriated in January 1919.
He was attracted to acting from a very early age. He went to Paris to take classes at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique (CNSAD). After his schooling, he became one of the stalwarts of the Théâtre de l'Odéon.
In 1928, he starred in the comedy 'Chotard et Cie'. One day, Marcel Pagnol went to see Charpin's acting on the advice of his regional colleague Raimu. After all, he was looking for a second actor like Raimu with a somewhat stocky build, a candid natural way of acting and the 'accent du Midi' for his new play 'Marius'. In 'Marius', Charpin played Honoré Panisse, the wealthy middle-aged sailmaker and widower who marries the pregnant Fanny (Orane Demazis) when she's deserted by the irresponsible Marius (Pierre Fresnay). Charpin was well-liked and 'Marius' achieved a resounding success. It was followed by 'Fanny', the second part of what would become the Marseille trilogy.
When Pagnol announced in 1931 that he would film his trilogy, Charpin also portrayed his role of the sailmaker on the big screen, both in the melodramas Marius (Alexander Korda, 1931) with Raimu and Pierre Fresnay, Fanny (Marc Allégret, 1932) starring Raimu and Orane Démazis, and in César (Marcel Pagnol, 1936), the third part which was first filmed and only later staged as a play.
During the same period, Jean Renoir signed on with Chotard et Cie/Chotard and Company (Jean Renoir, 1933) to film the comedy that had led to Charpin's film debut. Finally, the film career of Fernand Charpin was launched.
French postcard in the Raimu series by MPC (Marcel Pagnol Com), no. 2. Photo: Roger Foster. Robert Vattier, Marcel Maupi, Raimu, Paul Dullac, Alida Rouffe and Fernand Charpin in Fanny (Marc Allégret, 1932). Caption: A scene in front of the bar La Marine.
French postcard in the Raimu series by MPC (Marcel Pagnol Com), no. 13. Raimu, Georges Grey, Josette Day, Line Noro and Fernand Charpin in La fille du Puisatier (Marcel Pagnol, 1940), written by Marcel Pagnol.
French postcard in the Raimu series by MPC (Marcel Pagnol Com), no. 15. Raimu, Fernand Charpin, Paul Dullac and Robert Vattier in Marius (Alexander Korda, 1931), written by Marcel Pagnol. Caption: You break my heart!!!
French postcard in the Raimu series by MPC (Marcel Pagnol Com), no. 27. Raimu and Fernand Charpin in Fanny (Marc Allégret, 1932).
French postcard in the Raimu series by MPC (Marcel Pagnol Com), no. 29. Photo: Roger Foster. Raimu and Fernand Charpin in Fanny (Marc Allégret, 1932).
Raimu and Fernandel
Marcel Pagnol, who by now had become great friends with Fernand Charpin, also directed him in the comedies Le Gendre de monsieur Poirier (Marcel Pagnol, 1933) and Le Schpountz/Heartbeat (Marcel Pagnol, 1938), and the tragicomedies La Femme du boulanger/The Baker's Wife (Marcel Pagnol, 1938) and La Fille du puisatier/The Well-Digger's Daughter (Marcel Pagnol, 1940) in which he co-starred with Raimu.
Charpin and Raimu co-starred seven times, but Charpin also appeared alongside the young Fernandel in eight comedies: Le Train de 8 heures 47 (Henri Wulschleger, 1934), Ignace (Pierre Colombier, 1937), Le Schpountz/Heartbeat (Marcel Pagnol, 1938), Berlingot et Compagnie (Fernand Rivers, 1939), La Fille du puisatier/The Well-Digger's Daughter (Marcel Pagnol, 1940), La Nuit merveilleuse/The Marvelous Night (Jean-Paul Paulin, 1940), Un chapeau de paille d'Italie (Maurice Cammage, 1941) and La Cavalcade des heures (1943).
Besides his film work for Marcel Pagnol, Charpin also featured in several film adaptations of works by Alphonse Daudet: the drama Sapho (Léonce Perret, 1934) starring Mary Marquet, the comedy Tartarin de Tarascon/Tartarin of Tarascon (Raymond Bernard, 1934) where he again starred alongside Raimu, who took the title role, and the dramas Le Petit Chose/The Little Thing (Maurice Cloche, 1938) and L'Arlésienne (1942) with Raimu. Charpin portrayed military and police officers of all ranks (colonel, commander, captains, commissioner, gendarme, brigadiers). He was also seen in civilian authority roles such as investigating judge, mayor (three times), school headmaster, and parish priest.
He additionally acted in some dramas. Julien Duvivier cast him twice. In the drama La Belle Équipe/They Were Five (Julien Duvivier, 1936), Charpin is a gendarme and in the crime film Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937), he is a snitch, a very atypical role for him. The film adaptations of novels he starred in were also mostly dramas: the family dramas Les Anges noirs/The Dark Angels (Willy Rozier, 1937), after François Mauriac, and Les Roquevillard (1943) after Henry Bordeaux, and the crime film Les Caves du Majestic/Majestic Hotel Cellars (Richard Pottier, 1945) after Georges Simenon.
Charpin married the actress Gabrielle Doulcet in 1913. Their marriage remained childless. In 1944, a few months after the Liberation, he suddenly died of heart failure at the age of 57. Charpin was suffering from a heart condition and when the lift in his building had stopped working due to electricity restrictions he had to climb the stairs to the seventh floor of his building, 3 rue Émile-Allez in Paris. It was too much. Fernand Charpin is buried in the Batignolles cemetery.
French postcard. Photo: Les productions J.N. Ermoliev / Tobis. Charpin as Jolivet in Michel Strogoff (Jacques de Baroncelli, Richard Eichberg, 1936). Caption: A film based on the famous novel by Jules Verne.
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 55. Photo: Studio Piaz.
French postcard by A.N, Paris, no. 924. Photo: Pathé Natan.
French postcard by Edition Erpé, Paris.
French postcard by Jean Dubout, Paris, 2009, D 49. Poster design by Albert Dubout (1950) for a re-issue of Fanny (Marc Allegret, 1932), written by Marcel Pagnol.
French postcard by Jean Dubout, Paris, 2006, D 3. Poster design by Albert Dubout (1950) for a re-issue of César (Marcel Pagnol, 1936), written by Marcel Pagnol.
Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia (Dutch, English and French) and IMDb.
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