Marcel Achard Movies and Career Information

Marcel Achard (b. 5 July 1899, in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, Rhône; d. 4 September 1974, Paris) was a French playwright and screenwriter whose popular sentimental comedies maintained his position as a highly-recognizable name in his country's theatrical and literary circles for five decades. He was elected to the Académie française in 1959. A native of the Rhône département's Urban Community of Lyon, France's second largest metropolitan area, Marcel-Auguste Ferréol was born in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, one of the city's suburbs, and adopted his nom de plume at the start of his writing career in the early 1920s. Able to absorb knowledge quickly, he became, in 1916, in the midst of World War I, a village schoolteacher at the age of 17. In 1919, a few months after the end of the war, the 20-year-old aspiring writer arrived in Paris and found jobs as a prompter at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier and as a journalist for various publications, including the major daily newspaper, Le Figaro. Marcel Achard wrote his first play in 1922 and had a major success the following year when renowned actor-director Charles Dullin staged his play Voulez-vous jouer avec moâ? [Would You Like to Play with Me?], a