Noël-Noël

A beloved, warmly popular French character player and screenwriter in his heyday, Noël Noël was born Lucien Édouard Noël on August 9, 1897 in Paris. He initially developed his celebrity in music halls and the cabaret venue, where he created his Adémaï Joseph comic character, a blundering, oafish French soldier. He eventually took this character successfully to film in the early 30s and remained in movies as both actor and sometime writer and director in both his own vehicles and those of others top comedians. A leftist cartoonist at one time not to mention a skillful songwriter, many of his ideals seeped into his work.Noël Noël began immediately in starring roles with the comedy _La prison en folie (1931)_ (qv) (Prison Madness); as a buffoonish lover in the more dramatic _Mistigri (1931)_ (qv) opposite 'Madeleine Renaud' (qv); as a fiancé torn between two women in the comedy _Father Unawares (1932)_ (qv); as the title comic role in _Monsieur Albert (1932)_ (qv); and as a snubbed lover in [the social comedy _Mam'zelle Spahi (1934)_ (qv). He took his popular protagonist, the naive, unassuming, bewildered-looking Adémaï soldier, to cinematic life first in the short films _Adémaï et la nation armée (1932)_ (qv) and _Backbench (2014)_ (qv), then to feature films with _Skylark (1934)_ (qv) co-starring 'Fernandel' (qv), _Passing Glory (1999)_ (qv) co-starring 'Michel Simon' (qv) and the war time picture _Everything 'Appens to Me (1943)_ (qv).Noël Noël became just as popular during the WWII years starring in such escapist film vehicles as _La famille Duraton (1939)_ (qv), _Sur le plancher des vaches (1940)_ (qv) and _A Cage of Nightingales (1945)_ (qv). He continued sporadically as a character lead or support in the 1950's and 1960's with such delights as the musical comedy _Life in a Song (1951)_ (qv), which he also wrote and directed; _Run Away Mr. Perle (1952)_ (qv), in the title role; the 'Preston Sturges' (qv) comedy _The French, They Are a Funny Race (1955)_ (qv); the political comedy _Der Damenschreck (1956)_ (qv); _Lock Up Your Spoons (1957)_ (qv); the mystery comedy _Seventh Heaven (1958)_ (qv) with 'Danielle Darrieux' (qv); the comic farce _Sputnik (1958)_ (qv); _The Bureaucrats (1959)_ (qv); _The Old Guard (1960)_ (qv); and the sex comedy _Jessica (1962)_ (qv) starring 'Maurice Chevalier' (qv) and 'Angie Dickinson' (qv).He left films after starring in the farcical comedy _The Sleeping Sentinel (1966)_ (qv), which he also wrote, in which he portrays a doctor who conspires with the royalists against Napoleon. Married twice, he died in France on October 4, 1989, age 92. .::Gary Brumburgh / [email protected]