Georges Milton(1886-1970)

Somewhat forgotten nowadays, Georges Milton was a tremendously popular light singer and actor for three decades. Born in the Parisian suburbs in 1886, Milton's breezy attitude and cheeky, parigot accent was adored by the average French people firstly because he was like them and secondly because he reflected a highly positive image of them, always resourceful and always in a good mood. This small chubby man with a big head nicknamed Bouboule ("Fatty") by his friend Maurice Chevalier (who helped boost his career), was a regular elixir of optimism, helping Mr. Everyman to put up with the difficulties of life. Laughter, sometimes a little vulgar but always good-natured, was his (winning) trademark. His songs could be outright silly ("Pouêt Pouêt", "Totor, t'as tort", "Emilienne") or a little subtler ("C'est pour mon papa"), but they were always irresistibly catchy. Also an operetta star ("Le Comte Obligado", "L'Auberge du Cheval blanc"), Georges Milton started a very successful movie career, most often playing Bouboule, the joyous Nobody who gets out of any situation by laughing... and free riding. A series of films which, as Jean Tulard in his "Dictionnaire des Acteurs" puts it, do not cause any metaphysical anguish nor break new ground in the art of filming. It should however be noted, which Tulard also mentions, that Abel Gance ("Napoléon") hired him to play the role of a fraud in "Jérôme Perreau", an ambitious reconstruction of the uprising in Paris against Mazarin. Georges Milton worked until the late forties. By the age of sixty he decided it was time to retire. He made an exception for Jean-Christophe Averty, the famous TV director, for whom he appeared in his show "Mi figue mi raisin" in 1963. He died in 1970, in a country still named France but which retained little in common with the France of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s that he entertained with such verve.