Max Linder

Trained at the Bordeaux Conservatory, Leuvielle joined Pathé Frères in 1905, adopting the screen persona 'Max': a chic, wealthy boulevardier with silk top hat, mustache, and cane whose elegance was constantly destroyed by comic disasters.

Between 1907 and 1914, Max Linder was the most famous and highest-paid film actor on earth. In Hollywood, he wrote and directed comedy masterworks including Seven Years Bad Luck (1921, inventing the famous mirror routine later used by the Marx Brothers). Charlie Chaplin famously inscribed his portrait: 'To Max, the professor, from his disciple'.