About Jean-Gaspard Deburau
Jean-Gaspard Deburau, sometimes erroneously called Debureau, was a Czech-French mime. He performed from 1816 to the year of his death at the Théâtre des Funambules, which was immortalized in Marcel Carné's poetic-realist film Children of Paradise (1945); Deburau appears in the film as a major character. His most famous pantomimic creation was Pierrot—a character that served as the godfather of all the Pierrots of Romantic, Decadent, Symbolist, and early Modernist theater and art. When he died, his son Jean-Charles (1829–1873) took over and later founded a "school" of pantomime, which flourished first in the south of France and then, at the end of the century, in Paris. This pantomime had been invented by Théophile Gautier in a "review" that he had published in the Revue de Paris. Jean-Gaspard became an actor and performed at the head of a nomadic troupe.
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