34 Facts About Jacques Tati

Jacques Tati was a French mime, filmmaker, actor and screenwriter.

Jacques Tati's father, Georges-Emmanuel Tatischeff, was born in Paris, the son of Dmitry Tatishcheff, General of the Imperial Russian Army and military attache to the Russian embassy in Paris.

Jacques Tati seems to have been an indifferent student, yet excelled in tennis and horse riding.

Jacques Tati left school in 1923, at the age of 16, and his grandfather trained him as a picture framer in the family business.

Jacques Tati first met Jacques Broido, with whom he became lifelong friends.

Jacques Tati left both the Racing Club de France, and to his family's disapproval, his apprenticeship at Cadres Van Hoof.

Jacques Tati's act caught the attention of Max Trebor, who offered him an engagement at the Theatre-Michel, where he quickly became the star act.

Jacques Tati's act is partly ballet and partly sport, partly satire and partly a charade.

Jacques Tati has devised a way of being both the player, the ball and the tennis racquet, of being simultaneously the football and the goalkeeper, the boxer and his opponent, the bicycle and the cyclist.

In September 1939, Jacques Tati was conscripted back into his 16th Regiment of Dragoons, which was then incorporated into the 3rd Division Legere de Cavalerie.

Jacques Tati saw action in the Battle of Sedan in May 1940, when the German Army marched through the Ardennes into northern France.

In early 1946, Jacques Tati and Fred Orain founded the production company Cady-Films, which would produce Tati's first three films.

Rene Clement was first approached to direct "L'Ecole des facteurs", but as he was preoccupied directing La Bataille du rail, directing duties fell to Jacques Tati, who starred in this short comedy about rural life.

Jacques Tati filmed it in 1947 in the village of Sainte-Severe-sur-Indre, where he had found refuge during the war.

The film was intended to be the first French feature film shot in colour; Jacques Tati simultaneously shot the film in black and white as an insurance policy.

Jacques Tati had fallen in love with the coast while staying in nearby Port Charlotte with his friends, Mr and Mrs Lemoine, before the war, and resolved to return one day to make a film there.

Jacques Tati chose instead to wait for four years, and, after much reflection, he revised his formula completely.

On receiving his Oscar, Jacques Tati was offered any treat that the Academy could bestow on him.

Playtime took nine years to make, and Jacques Tati had to borrow heavily from his own resources to complete the picture.

Playtime was originally 155 minutes in length, but Jacques Tati soon released an edited version of 126 minutes; this is the version that was generally released to theatres in 1967.

Tati biographer David Bellos noted that Tati had approached everybody from Darryl F Zanuck to French prime minister Georges Pompidou in a bid to get the film completed.

Jacques Tati was forced to sell the family house of Saint-Germain shortly after the death of his mother, Claire van Hoof, and move back into Paris.

In 1969, with reduced means, Jacques Tati created a new production company, CEPEC, to oversee his opportunities in film and TV production.

In 1971, Jacques Tati made an advertisement for England's Lloyds Bank, in which he depicted a dehumanized bank of the future, with money dispensed by a computerized counter.

Jacques Tati's last completed film, Parade, a film produced for Swedish television in 1973, is more or less a filmed circus performance, featuring Jacques Tati's mime acts and other performers.

In 1978, Jacques Tati began filming "Forza Bastia", a short documentary focusing on a football match between the Corsican team SC Bastia and the Dutch team PSV Eindhoven during the UEFA Cup Final, which he did not complete.

Jacques Tati undertook the project at the request of his friend Gilberto Trigano, who was the president of the Bastia club at the time.

The semi-autobiographical script that Jacques Tati wrote in 1956 was released internationally as an animated film, The Illusionist, in 2010.

At the Lido de Paris, Jacques Tati met and fell in love with the young Czech-Austrian dancer Herta Schiel, who had fled Vienna with her sister Molly at the time of the Anschluss.

Jacques Tati refused to recognise the child, reportedly due to pressure from his sister, Nathalie.

In 1943, after a short engagement at the ABC, where Edith Piaf was headlining, Jacques Tati, having been shunned by his former colleagues at the Lido de Paris for his behaviour, left Paris under a cloud, with his friend Henri Marquet, and they settled in the Village of Sainte-Severe-sur-Indre.

In 1944, Jacques Tati returned to Paris, and after a brief courtship, married Micheline Winter.

In 1995, after a year of meticulous work, Sophie, with the aid of film technician Francois Ede, was able for the first time to release a colour print of Jour de fete, as Jacques Tati had originally intended.

In 2014, Les Films de Mon Oncle became part of Vivendi, in partnership with StudioCanal, which now oversees international distribution of Jacques Tati's oeuvre, having released digitally restored versions of all his short and long films as boxsets in both DVD and Blu-ray.