My Friend
Maurice
Chevalier
at 75
An American comedian pays a birthday tribute to the Gallic charmer with the straw hat
This week my good friend Maurice Che
valier celebrates his 75th birthday. I could
write a book about him but let me briefly go
back to the 1920s.
Paris in those days boasted "the girl with the most
beautiful legs in the world," the Folies Bergere beauty,
Mistinguett. She had all France at her feet and her choice
of counts, princes, dukes, and multimillionaire business
tycoons. Yet Mistinguett passed up all of them in favor of
a penniless young man who, when she met him, was 22
years old and many years her junior.
The young man idolized her, and for the rest of their
lives each was to be the other's only true love. But they
didn't "live happily ever after." No, sadly, they went their
separate ways when the man realized that part of his
heart was irrevocably lost to another more capricious
love audiences all over the world, audiences that one day
would return the adoration of Maurice Chevalier.
In 1929, I appeared in Ziegfeld's "Midnight Frolic" on
the roof of the New Amsterdam Theater, New York's
most expensive night club of the era. One evening, the
Great Ziegfeld asked me to introduce someone in the
audience. I had never heard the name before, nor had the
audience, but after introducing him, he stayed onstage
for more than an hour singing in English and French.
He could have sung in Chinese: that Parisian twinkle
in his eye, that mischievous lower lip, the rakish angle of
that now-famous straw hat hypnotized the audience.
When Maurice. Chevalier started taking bows, the ap
plause shook the room.
This was my first meeting with the fascinating French
man, but through the years we became close friends. Just
the other day 1 received a letter from him in his unmis
takably bold, energetic handwriting. His letters, no matter
how long, are always handwritten.
Following his recent television special, "The World of
Maurice Chevalier," I gave a party for him. One guest
was particularly hilarious and happy. Maurice whispered
to me, "Eddie, who is he?"
I whispered back, "The leader of a big labor union."
Maurice laughed, "He's certainly having a wonderful
time-and-a-half."
By the early 1930s, Chevalier was France's favorite
and America's adopted son. During that period he was in
Hollywood much of the time and visited me frequently.
One evening he pedaled up to my house, as usual, on a
bicycle. "Maurice," I said, "you're too famous to be riding
around on a bicycle. It's time you got a Rolls-Royce."
Chevalier chuckled, "Eddie, if I make good pictures,
people will think I have a Rolls-Royce. If I make bad pic
tures, they will think I have a bicycle even if my garage
is packed with Rolls-Royces."
One night after attending a movie, Maurice and I went
to a nearby spot for doughnuts and coffee. At the sight of
p.
Mis
this continental charmer even the waitresses, who were
used to Hollywood stars, lost their heads and their holds
on the china. They broke more dishes than a new bride.
And when Maurice dipped a doughnut in his coffee, one
waitress yelled, "Look, girls! He dunks!"
Chevalier had the same deep passion for his country
that he had for Mistinguett and for his audiences. A
soldier in World War I, he was wounded in the right lung,
captured by the Germans, and spent more than two years
in a prison camp.
When he finally returned to Paris, he found it difficult
to pick up the pieces of his career. Still weak and ill from
his wound and his siege in the prison camp, he couldn't
re-establish his old rapport with audiences. Just when
things looked blackest, Mistinguett came to the rescue,
and he once again appeared with her in the Folies Ber
gere. Now it was as if he never had been away.
As a veteran performer, Mistinguett helped Maurice in
many ways. In the early days Chevalier affected a clown
like costume with rouged cheeks, a red nose, an ill-fitting
suit, and a silly cap. It was Mistinguett who pointed out
that, with his talent, he needed none of these things.
But it was in the midst of his rediscovered happiness,
appearing in the Folies Bergere with Mistinguett, that
things began to go wrong between them. When Mistin
guett finally accepted the fact that her promising pupil
had graduated and was now a performer of ever-increasing
stature, her protective attitude was replaced by treat
ment usually reserved for rivals. As Chevalier grew more
popular, he and Mistinguett grew further apart.
The climax came when the brilliant American actress,
Elsie Janis, asked Maurice to play in a London revue with
her. The decision to leave Paris and Mistinguett was an
agonizing one, but when he made up his mind, Mistin
guett's only comment was, "Well, Maurice, this is what
you always wanted."
FROM THEN ON, Chevalier's success exceeded his wildest
dreams. He was a happy man. Then came World War
II. In love with a Jewish girl, Chevalier risked his life by
hiding her and her parents from the Nazis.
But a bitter moment came at the end of the war. Listen
ing to the radio one night, Chevalier heard his name listed
among those who had collaborated with the Nazis. Every
body in France seemed to have heard this broadcast, but
few heard a later one with the news that Chevalier's name
had been included in error. The damage was done. Che
valier's beloved France hunted him as a collaborationist,
accusing him of entertaining German troops.
The truth was that the Germans had urged him to ac
cept an engagement in Berlin. He refused, but he did
agree to appear just once at Alten Grabow, the camp
where he had been a prisoner during World War I. His
fee: the release of 10 French POWs. German news-reports
implied that he had performed in troop camps and had
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