René Hiéronimus(1893-1971)
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Passionate about the theatre as of his school years, René Hiéronimus's
career spanned six decades and a half. After appearing in a few plays,
he was hired at the Comédie-Française, where he got to know
Sacha Guitry. Having become a good friend
of his, Guitry cast him in several of his plays ("Deux couverts"
[1914], "Nono" [1918], "Pasteur" [1919]). As of 1917, René Hiéronimus
also answered the call of cinema, without making a splash in the
medium. Although a good character actor, it is to be admitted that
Hiéronimus was mainly in forgettable movies, with the exception of
La terre (1921),
André Antoine's masterpiece, and, to a
lesser extent,
Henri Diamant-Berger's 1930s films
(particularly his fairly good version of
Les trois mousquetaires (1932)
and the respectable adaptation of
Anatole France's
Crainquebille (1934) by
Jacques de Baroncelli). But it is
thanks to his voice that René Hiéronimus has remained present to French
audiences, especially children. An active dubber indeed, he has
participated in three important Walt Disney Films,
Merlin l'Enchanteur (1963),
as Archimedes, Merlin's grouchy owl,
Mary Poppins (1964), as
Umbrella-Parrot, and
Le Livre de la jungle (1967), as a
monkey.
