Pierre Alcover(1893-1957)
- Actor
It was not obvious from the start that Pierre Alcover, a hefty John
Blunt, would become a stage and movie actor. In fact he seems to be one
of his kind for they are few those who made the transition from
warehouseman at Les Halles (Paris' traditional central market) to
winner of a first prize at the Conservatoire de Paris. But Alcover was
both able to carry a 200 kilo load on his broad back as to tell the
lines of famous playwrights on the boards of l'Odéon, the prestigious
theater where he debuted in 1916. On the silver screen, his imposing
stature and his gruff tone predisposed him to violent roles, on either
side of the law. He was either a bandit
(L'affaire du courrier de Lyon (1937),
Un carnet de bal (1937)
Louis Jouvet
's accomplices) or a cop (the inefficient policeman
in Marcel Carné's comedy Drôle de drame (1937), also with Jouvet). A
bad boy (in Fritz Lang's
only French film Liliom (1934)), a head
spy (in Jacques Robert's La
chèvre aux pieds d'or (1925), En plongée (1926), a convict (with a
heart) in the touching
La petite Lise (1930) directed by
Jean Grémillon, he was the head warden in
Criminel (1933), the French version of
The Criminal Code (1930), the
chief of the Czar's police in
Pierre Billon's
Au service du tsar (1936) and
even Sanson the executioner in
Sous la terreur (1935)! Anyway,
whether a lawbreaker or a law enforcer, Pierre Alcover brought the same
conviction (no pun intended) to the role he was given to play. One of
the great character actors of the 1920s and 1930s.
