Marcel Marceau (born 1923) has been acknowledged as the world's greatest practitioner of pantomime. He revived this ancient form of acting and created a new school to train young people who aspired to follow his style.

Marcel Marceau was born in Strasbourg, France, on March 22, 1923. His father, Charles, was a butcher and his mother, Ann, née Werzberg, was a native Alsatian. Later the family moved to Lille where his father also raised pigeons on the roof. Marcel remembered in his mature years that he was raised hearing the sound of wing beats. The sound enchanted him; so did silent films. Marceau once commented, "When I was five years old my mother took me to see Charlie Chaplin's moving pictures.... I sat entranced.... It was then that I decided to become a mime." Borrowing his father's pants and using ink to paint on a moustache, he tried to...