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.

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.

Early years
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. 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.

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. In 1905 he was appointed assistant manager, under his father, of the newly restored Théâtre du Palais-Royal, after which he moved to the Folies-Bergère in 1908 as business manager. In 1910 he opened a theatrical agency in Paris. On 5 August 1911 he married an English dancer, Florence Gladman (1891–1956). They had one son and one daughter.

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, presenting spectacular, large-scale shows.

Peak years
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. 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. The style appealed to the public and the show ran for more than 500 performances. Charlot, familiar with intimate revue from his years in Paris, was quick to follow Cochran's example in London.

The writer Eric Maschwitz says of Charlot:

For his revues Charlot chose theatres of modest size, such as the Vaudeville, which seated 700. A typical Charlot show featured a small orchestra, and onstage up to six stars backed by an ensemble who could all sing, dance and act. Imaginative lighting replaced opulent stage sets, allowing for quick changes of scene between short sketches. Moore writes that to this formula Charlot added an "undefinable style".

Charlot was adept at discovering and encouraging new talent. Among the performers he featured at or near the beginning of their careers were Binnie Hale, Gertrude Lawrence, Beatrice Lillie, Jessie Matthews, Phyllis Monkman, Jack Buchanan and Jack Hulbert. His writers included Ronald Jeans and Dion Titheradge; among the composers were Ivor Novello and Philip Braham; and, as writer, composer and performer, there was Noël Coward, who co-wrote and co-starred in Charlot's London Calling (1923–24), for which Fred Astaire provided choreography.

Coward learned from Charlot that it was not enough for a revue to have first-rate songs and sketches: it was vital to present them in the most effective order. Coward recalled:

Charlot kept his revues fresh by renewing the numbers during a run. There were, for instance, three editions of London Calling with new songs and sketches added to the second and third.

Charlot had a major success on Broadway with Charlot's Revue of 1924, a compilation of numbers and sketches, mainly by Coward, from Charlot's West End shows. It took New York by storm – The Daily News reported "The Charlot Revue sets crowd cheering" – established Buchanan, Lawrence, Lillie and Matthews on the New York stage and, in the words of the theatre historians Mander and Mitchenson, "at last established intimate revue on the other side of the Atlantic". The show ran on Broadway for 298 performances and then went on tour in the US and Canada.

According to Maschwitz, Charlot was the first leading London producer to recognise the potentialities of broadcasting, associating himself actively with the production of almost fifty Charlot's Hour programmes for BBC radio.

Later years
With the Great Depression, theatre attendance dropped dramatically, and Charlot was forced into temporary bankruptcy after the failure of his revue Wonder Bar in 1930. That same year he collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock, Hulbert, and Paul Murray on direction of the film Elstree Calling. After producing a series of smaller London revues, he moved to Hollywood, where between 1942 and 1955 he appeared in 50 films, often in small, uncredited roles. According to Moore his most memorable role was the probably "the fearsomely condemning cardinal" in The Song of Bernadette.

Charlot had taken British citizenship in 1922, and American citizenship in 1944. He died in Hollywood on 20 May 1956 and was buried there on 25 May.

Films

 * Source: British Film Institute.