10 Facts About Annie Fratellini

Annie Violette Fratellini was a French circus artist, singer, film actress and clown.

Annie Fratellini was born Annie Violette Fratellini on 14 November 1932, in Algiers, French Algeria, where her parents, who were circus performers, were touring.

Annie Fratellini was the fourth generation of one of Europe's most illustrious clown dynasties, the Fratellini Family, a French circus family of Italian descent.

Annie Fratellini's father was Victor Fratellini, a clown and acrobat; her mother, Suzanne, was the daughter of Gaston Rousseau, the director of the Cirque de Paris, a huge circus building located Avenue de la Motte-Picquet in Paris that was active from 1906 to 1930.

Annie Fratellini's grandfather was Paul Fratellini, one of the Fratellini brothers, the legendary clown trio that was the Toast of Paris between the two world wars.

Annie Fratellini became a film actress, appearing notably in 1965 in La Metamorphose des cloportes a film directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre, whom she had married in 1954.

Annie Fratellini had an inherited talent for comedy, and Pierre Etaix convinced her to take it seriously.

In 1975, Etaix and Fratellini opened the Ecole Nationale du Cirque, one of Paris's first two professional circus schools, and created the Nouveau Cirque de Paris, an intimate, high-end traveling circus that was the performing arm of the school, and in which they regularly performed their act.

Pierre Etaix and Annie Fratellini divorced in 1987, and Annie continued to run the school and the circus, performing her clown act with her daughter, Valerie.

Annie Fratellini died from cancer on 1 July 1997, at Neuilly-sur-Seine and is buried at the Cimetiere de Montmartre in Paris, France, near the other members of her illustrious family.