François Darbon

François Darbon is a French actor director and writer In 1938 François Darbon began his first theatrical experiences in Tunis With a company of amateur actors he performed for three evenings at the municipal theatre The following day nostalgic for those nights on stage he decided to make it his profession In September 1939 during his military service near Biarritz he met the man he would never leave André Clavé who like him had been mobilized as a Reserve Officer Cadet Their friendship was born through discussions about theatre and at a time when André Clavé had temporarily set aside the troupe he had founded in 1936 the company Les Comédiens de la Roulotte with Geneviève WroneckiKellershohn Jean Desaillythen a very young amateur beginnerand a few others François Darbon would meet them again in September 1940 to perform La paix chez soi The following month the troupe joined the Jeune France movement and they finally began a life as professional actors They were joined in February 1941 by Jean Vilar who agreed to come to La Roulotte simply as a writer and by Hélène Gerber both students of Charles Dullin Thanks to financial support from Jeune France the troupe went on a theatrical tour through central France during the summer of 1941 In the summer of 1942 La Roulotte set off again touring Brittany and central France but this time without subsidies as Jeune France had been dissolved at the end of winter For security reasons Clavé was then forced to leave his own company a year after joining a Resistance network the Brutus network François Darbon used the final years of the war to study under Charles Dullin After the war he reunited with André Clavé Having returned from the Nazi camps of Buchenwald and Dora Clavé was asked in 1946 by Jeanne Laurent to reconstitute his troupe Les Comédiens de la Roulotte to conduct exploratory tours She later asked him to replace Roland Piétri as director of the Centre Dramatique de lEst in Colmar Darbon took part in all these ventures until the end of December 1952 when Michel SaintDenis replaced Clavé Darbon and Clavé then founded the ClavéDarbon Company together and performed in France and Germany until 1955 when André Clavé was forced to leave the theatre to pursue other paths François Darbon then followed a more solitary path working from production to production and film to film He would nonetheless cross paths with Clavé againboth men bound by unwavering loyaltywhen Clavé asked him to train African radio announcers in diction at the school he directed the StudioÉcole a school created by Pierre Schaeffer in preparation for decolonization At 25 Darbon married the lovely Nathalie Manoyloff of Russian origin They had a daughter Sophie Sophie Darbon is an author actress and director like her father She recently published a childrens tale Sotisette Planplan et la clé des fées with Edilivre dedicated to her parents