Dieudonné, Albert

(1889-1976)

   Actor, director, and screen-writer. Albert Dieudonné began his career on the stage, following in the footsteps of his uncle, who was also an actor. He ventured into cinema fairly early in his career. His first roles were in productions done by Studio Film d'art, and he appeared in Henri Burguet's L'Empreinte ou la main rouge (1908) as well as Charles le Bargy's L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise (1909). He also appeared in several Pathé films including Michel Carré's Le Roi s'amuse (1909), as well as Georges Monca's Jim Blackwood Jockey (1909) and André Hugon's Angoisse (1917) and Jacques Landauze (1920).

   Without a doubt, the role for which Dieudonné is best known is that of Napoléon Bonaparte. He played Napoléon several times in his career, three of them in films directed by Abel Gance. It is the first film, Napoléon vu par Abel Gance (1927), that tied Dieudonné to the emperor, and his face, for many filmgoers, became the face of the emperor with Gance's film. Dieudonné reincarnated the emperor again in Gance's Napoléon Bonaparte (1935) and again in Bonaparte et la révolution (1971). So intertwined were Dieudonné and that role that near the end of his life, he gave lectures on the life of Napoléon. Other films in which Dieudonné appeared include Alfred Machin's Le Diamant noir (1913), Gance's L'Héroïsme de Paddy (1915), La Folie du Docteur Tube (1915), and Le Périscope (1916), Jean Renoir's Catherine/Une vie sans joie (1927), and Roger Richebé's Madame Sans-Gêne (1941), a film in which Dieudonné also played Napoleon.

   In addition to his acting, Dieudonné also tried his hand at writing and directing. He assisted Jean Renoir on the film Catherine/ Une vie sans joie and wrote the scenario for Hugon's Les Chacals (1917), Jacques de Baroncelli's L'Homme du Niger (1940), and René Hervil's La Douceur d'aimer (1930). He also directed three films of his own, Sous la griffe (1921), Son crime (1921), Gloire rouge (1923), films in which he also starred.