Annie Fratellini
Annie Fratellini | |
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 Fratellini (centre) in Rascel-Fifì (1957) | |
| Born | Annie Violette Fratellini November 14, 1932 |
| Died | July 1, 1997 (aged 64) |
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| Years active | 1934-1987 |
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| Children | 1 |
Annie Violette Fratellini (14 November 1932 – 1 July 1997) was a French circus artist, singer, film actress and clown.
Biography
She was born Annie Violette Fratellini on 14 November 1932, in
Although she made her debut in the ring at age 13 at the famous Cirque Medrano in Paris, she eventually ran away from the circus when she was 18 years old, and begun a music-hall and recording career as a musician and singer. She also became a film actress, appearing notably in 1965 in La Métamorphose des cloportes a film directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre (1927–2007), whom she had married in 1954. They had one daughter, Valérie.
In 1969, she starred in Pierre Étaix's Le grand amour. They fell in love and married that same year. Pierre Étaix (1928–2016), who had been a comedian and Jacques Tati's assistant before becoming a filmmaker himself, had a passion for the circus and clowns. Annie Fratellini had an inherited talent for comedy, and Pierre Étaix convinced her to take it seriously. Together, they created a classic European clown duo in which Étaix was the Clown to Fratllini's Auguste (the comic character of the duet). They made their debut on tour with the French Cirque Pinder.
In 1975, Étaix and Fratellini opened the École Nationale du Cirque, one of Paris's (and Europe's) first two professional circus schools, and created the Nouveau Cirque de Paris, an intimate, high-end traveling circus that was the performing arm of the school, and in which they regularly performed their act. Pierre Étaix and Annie Fratellini divorced in 1987, and Annie continued to run the school and the circus, performing her clown act with her daughter, Valérie. The school has become the Académie Fratellini, one of France's two major state-sponsored circus schools.
Death
Annie Fratellini died from cancer on 1 July 1997, at Neuilly-sur-Seine and is buried at the
Selected filmography
- And Your Sister? (1958)
- All the Gold in the World (1961)
- Le Pas de Trois (1964)
- La Métamorphose des cloportes (1965)
- Le Grand Amour(1969)
External links
- Annie Fratellini at IMDb
- http://www.musicme.com/#/Annie-Fratellini/biographie/
- http://www.academie-fratellini.com
- https://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/04/arts/annie-fratellini-64-clown-and-founder-of-school-dies.html
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-annie-fratellini-1249053.html
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