Alfred Capus
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, born in Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence
Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
and deceased in Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...
.
Biography
Son to a lawyer from MarseilleMarseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, Alfred Capus went to university in Toulon
Toulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
. After failing several entrance tests for higher-education schools and working as a draughtsman for a while, he went on to become a journalist.
One of his first articles was an obituary
Obituary
An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...
of Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
. He went on to write funny pieces for papers such as Gaulois, L'Écho de Paris
L'Écho de Paris
L'Écho de Paris was a daily newspaper in Paris from 1884 to 1944.The paper's editorial stance was initially conservative and nationalistic, although it did later become close to the French Socialist Party. Its writers included Octave Mirbeau, Georges Clemenceau, Henry Bordeaux, François Mitterrand,...
and L'Illustration. He also wrote for Le Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
, under the penname of Graindorge. In 1914, he became the editor of Figaro
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
. During the First World War he would write stridently patriotic pieces.
On 12 February 1914, he became a member of the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
.
Work and themes
In 1878 he published, in collaboration with L Vonoven, a volume of short stories, and in the next year the two produced a one-act piece, Le Mari malgre lui, at the Théâtre Cluny.His novels, Qui perd gagne (1890), Faux Depart (1891), Année des d'aventures (1895), which belong to this period, describe the struggles of three young men at the beginning of their career. From the first of these he took his first comedy, Brignol et sa fille (Vaudeville, November 23, 1894).
The German film Leontines Ehemänner ("Leontine's Husbands"), released in 1928 and starring Claire Rommer, Georg Alexander, Adele Sandrock and Truus van Aalten
Truus van Aalten
Geertruida Everdina Wilhelmina van Aalten was a Dutch actress who appeared in many German films in the 1920s and 1930s.-Early life:...
, was adapted from Capus 1900 comedy Les Maris de Leontine.
Plays
- (1896), written with Alphonse AllaisAlphonse AllaisAlphonse Allais was a French writer and humorist born in Honfleur, Calvados.He is the author of many collections of whimsical writings. A poet as much as a humorist, he in particular cultivated the verse form known as holorhyme, i.e. made up entirely of homophonous verses, where entire lines rhyme...
- (1897)
- (1897)
- (1898)
- (1900)
- (1900)
- (1901)
- (1901) (the basis of the 1921 comédie musicale La petite fonctionnaireLa petite fonctionnaireLa petite fonctionnaire is a comédie musicale in three acts of 1921, with music by André Messager and a French libretto by Alfred Capus and Xavier Roux, based on a play by Capus.-Background:...
) - (1902)
- (1902)
- (1903), with Emmanuel Arène, which was produced in London by George AlexanderGeorge AlexanderGeorge Alexander may refer to:*George Alexander , British actor*George Alexander , mayor of Los Angeles*George T. Alexander , US Army soldier*George W...
as The Man of the Moment - (1904), the first of his plays to be performed at the Théâtre Français
- (1905)
- (1906), written with Lucien DescavesLucien DescavesLucien Descaves was a French novelist. A disciple of Joris-Karl Huysmans and the Goncourt brothers his novels Le Calvaire d'Héloïse Pajadou and Une vieille rate followed strongly the naturalism movement.The anti-military novel, Sous-Offs provoked a scandal...
Novels
- (1890)
- (1891)
- (1910)