Alfred Capus
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Alfred Capus (25 November 1858[1][2] – 1 November 1922) was a French journalist and playwright, who was born in Aix-en-Provence and died in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
Biography
[edit | edit source]Son of a lawyer from Marseille, Alfred Capus went to university in Toulon. 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 of Darwin.[3] He went on to write humorous pieces for papers such as Gaulois, L'Écho de Paris and L'Illustration. He also wrote for Le Figaro, under the penname of Graindorge. In 1914, he became the editor of Figaro. During the First World War he wrote stridently patriotic pieces.[citation needed]
On 12 February 1914, he became a member of the Académie française.
Work and themes
[edit | edit source]In 1878, in collaboration with L. Vonoven, he published a volume of short stories; the next year the two produced a one-act piece, Le Mari malgre lui, at the Théâtre Cluny.[4]
His novels, Qui perd gagne (1890), Faux Depart (1891), Année des d'aventures (1895), 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).[4]
The German film Leontine's Husbands, released in 1928 and starring Claire Rommer, Georg Alexander, Adele Sandrock and Truus van Aalten, was adapted from Capus' 1900 comedy Les Maris de Leontine.
Bibliography
[edit | edit source]Plays
[edit | edit source]- Innocent (1896), written with Alphonse Allais
- Petites folles (1897)
- Rosine (1897)
- Mariage bourgeois (1898)
- Les Maris de Leontine (1900)
- La Bourse ou la vie (1900)
- La Veine (1901)
- La Petite Fonctionnaire (1901) (the basis of the 1921 comédie musicale La petite fonctionnaire)
- Les Deux Ecoles (1902)
- La Châtelaine (1902)
- L'Adversaire (1903), with Emmanuel Arène, which was produced in London by George Alexander as The Man of the Moment
- Notre Jeunesse (1904), the first of his plays to be performed at the Théâtre Français
- Monsieur Piegois (1905)
- L'Attentat (1906), written with Lucien Descaves[4]
Novels
[edit | edit source]- Qui perd gagne (1890)
- Faux départ (1891)
- Robinson (1910)
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ A few sources state 1857, but the majority state 1858
- ^ Barrett H. Clark (1915), Contemporary French Dramatists, Stewart & Kidd Company, Cincinnati, page 139
- ^ a b c One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). This cites Édouard Quet, Alfred Capus (1904), with appreciations by various authors, in the series of Célébrités d'aujourd'hui.
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- 1858 births
- 1922 deaths
- Writers from Aix-en-Provence
- 19th-century French novelists
- 20th-century French novelists
- 20th-century French male writers
- Members of the Académie Française
- Commanders of the Legion of Honour
- Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
- French male novelists
- 19th-century French male writers
- Le Figaro people