Félix Galipaux(1860-1931)

Félix Galipaux was a French actor, playwright, and humorist, born in Bordeaux, and educated in Bordeaux and Paris. He wrote some forty plays produced in Parisian theatres. He was also a newspaper columnist using the pseudonym Félix Mayran, and collaborated with the writer Henri Pagat under the joint pseudonym Pagalipaux. Galipaux and the actor Coquelin Cadet popularized the genre of music hall monologue acts in the 1880s. Galipaux was also one of the founding members of the Cercle Funambulesque and was linked to the Incoherents movement. In 1896, the pioneering filmmaker Émile Reynaud filmed Galipaux performing his popular routine Le premier cigare (1896). He later acted in films by Ferdinand Zecca and by Georges Méliès, such as An Adventurous Automobile Trip (1905). He also featured in some of the first French sound films for Pathé Frères, such as La lettre (1904) and Au téléphone (1906), and also made several spoken-word recordings for gramophone records. For his work, he was awarded the title of Officier de l'Instruction Publique in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques.