Roger Karl

French actor and writer who played notable supporting roles in L'Homme du large (Man of the Open Seas) by Marcel L'Herbier, Un drame au bord de la mer (A Drama on the Seashore) by Honoré de Balzac, and La Femme de nulle part (The Woman from Nowhere) under the direction of Louis Delluc. A friend of Paul Léautaud he published a book under the name Michel Balfort with the title Journal d'un homme de nulle part (Diary of a Man out of Nowhere) and a novel, Une mère (A Mother), using the pseudonym PR Carle. Hired by Antoine at the Odeon Theatre, he toured with Sarah Bernhardt and played the role of Dmitri Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov. A member of the first troupe of the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in 1913-1914, he did not appreciate the ascetic atmosphere or gymnastic methods and became a postwar interpreter of roles by Porche Francis and Henry Bataille. He then turned to film, and acted alongside Julien Duvivier, Jean Grémillon, Abel Gance, Marc Allégret, and Christian-Jaque, but he did not appreciate the constraints of film any more than those of theatre and hid his talents in routine jobs. He married actress Paule Andral on 14 April 1925. A centenarian, he died on 4 May 1984, aged 102, in Paris. Link to Wikipedia biography