Thursday, June 05, 2008

Mel Ferrer

Audrey Hepburn's ex-husband, Mel Ferrer, has died. He acted in many movies and TV shows in his long career, and even directed a bit.

His best known role is the crippled puppeteer in Lili. The part actually required he voice a number of puppets, and he pulls it off perfectly.

But I'll always remember him as the suave, villainous Marquis de Maynes in Scaramouche. I especially love how he puts down the principles of the French Revolution: "Liberty must be rationed amongst the few with the talent to use it. There's no such thing as Equality, most men who are born in the gutter are only at home there. As of Fraternity, a de Mayne is nobody's brother. We stand alone at the head of the table." (Or something like that.)

1 Comments:

Blogger New England Guy said...

Based on your description and having not seen Lili, I originally thought this was Jose Ferrer (another great voice for aristo characters) I see from the link however that he was no relation.

Thanks for the notice on Scaramouche as a film. Scaramouche is a wonderful book- Rafael Sabatini at his finest (though I think the Marquis had another name?)- Whether or not thats a direct quote, He could write unabashed character dialogue like that without embarrassment (cf. Captain Blood, The Banner of the Bull (about Cosimo deMedici)and about 20-30 other other adventure novels)

9:03 AM, June 05, 2008  

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