Reserved for the Stage

PARIS has two monuments," Jean Cocteau once remarked. "The Eiffel Tower and Maurice Chevalier." Last week, after Chevalier died in Paris at 83, only one was left.

Like De Gaulle, Maurice Chevalier was a French legend, but one inspiring love not awe; a legend in his own time--for half a century he was the best-known French entertainer on either side of the Atlantic. For Americans, Chevalier was synonymous with Gay Paree--joie de vivre; I'amour, toujours I'amour; English with a charming French accent. For the French he conjured up a different image. Maurice personified the "Titi Parisien" (Parisian Urchin). Born in the old working-class quarter of Menilmontant, he was a kind of French cockney, with the innate wit, mocking manner, insouciance and unconcern for tomorrow of the poor Parisian from the faubourgs. He was the antithesis of the bourgeois from the 16th arrondissement, where eventually he went to live.

The tools of Chevalier's trade were as familiar as the bowler, cane and flat-footed waddle of his contemporary, Charlie Chaplin; almost always there was a straw hat tilted rakishly over a roguish blue eye, a jutting lower lip, a slightly protruding derriere, and that gay boulevardier's swagger. When famed Director Ernst Lubitsch offered him the role of a prince in Hollywood, Chevalier laughingly declined, saying: "With my swinging walk, I can only play commoners."

From the Heart. Indeed, when "Momo" made his debut at the age of twelve in a Paris cafe, he was dressed as a peasant. He had the spectators roaring with laughter as he sang three tones above his pianist. From the start to the finish of his singing career, which lasted 71 years, Chevalier never did have much of a voice. "I have always sung," he said himself, "more from the heart than the throat." He learned to come on twinkling and debonair, his r-rolling repertory in droll counterpart to his charming manner and accomplished delivery.

It was easy to believe the story that Chevalier returned periodically to the Berlitz School to perfect his French accent in English. Chevalier was marked by America long before he saw the Statue of Liberty. "My first influence was the American music hall," he has explained. "I remember seeing the Tiller girls in Paris sing Yankee Doodle Dandy with that crazy tempo. I went mad. What I did was to mix the American novelty and old French humor so that even to the French I was something new." It was that new-old French humor that came across in his best-loved chansons, Valentine, Ma Pomme, Paris, Je T'Aime, and such American favorites as Louise and If a Nightingale Could Sing Like You.

Before World War I, Chevalier was a partner--and lover--of the famed cabaret singer and dancer Mistinguett. Later he went on to star alone at the Folies-Bergere and the Casino de Paris. In the late '20s and early '30s he became a very highly paid American movie idol. Even Greta Garbo, for a fleeting moment, once felt that it might be nice to be with him. "Do you know how to swim, Monsieur Chevalier?" Greta asked at a dinner party in Hollywood. "Mais oui," replied Chevalier hesitantly. "Then let's go for a dip in the ocean right now," said the Swedish actress. "But it's midnight," objected the Frenchman. "Le Pacifique est glacial." Garbo never talked to Chevalier again.

There always was a lot of common sense in the commoner Chevalier. One of his favorite remarks was the classic line: "Growing old isn't so bad when you consider the alternative." Back recently from a trip to the U.S., Chevalier was asked how it had gone. "If I had wanted to please everybody," he replied, "I would have had to drink to my health 24 hours out of 24. But little Maurice was playing it cool. I don't want to hand myself around like a resort booklet. I'm reserving myself for the stage." He could have said with pride that he kept that reservation all his life.

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