Veteran mime artist Marcel Marceau dies at 84

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

PARIS (AFP) — Marcel Marceau, the French mime artist who for 60 years transfixed international audiences with his stage persona Bip the Clown, has died at the age of 84, relatives said Sunday.

Marceau, who is credited with single-handedly resurrecting the art form of mime after World War II, died Saturday evening "surrounded by his family," his daughter Camille Marceau told AFP.

Further details would be disclosed later, she said, as well as the arrangements for his funeral at the Pere-Lachaise cemetery in central Paris.

Tributes poured in for an artist whose whited-out face, striped pullover and expressive genius made him a familiar figure for millions of television viewers around the world from the 1960s.

President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his...