Remembering Maurice Chevalier well at OCC

Young Chang

No one can simply imitate Maurice Chevalier, said entertainer Tony

Sandler.

“It’s impossible,” Sandler said. “It’s not just putting a hat on and

grabbing a cane and singing ‘Valentine.”’

Being Chevalier is, instead, having integrity and exactitude and an

exhausting, but admirable work ethic, making a show authentic.

In his one-man concert Sunday for Orange Coast College titled

“Chevalier: Maurice and Me,” Sandler will perform -- not imitate --

Chevalier’s greatest hits including “Mimi,” “Gigi,” “Paris Au Revoir,” “I

Remember it Well” and “Thank Heaven for the Little Girls.”

He will lace the performances with tales of the late entertainer’s

life and prove just why Chevalier deserves to be venerated.

“Which is greatly lacking today,” said Sandler, a Belgium native who

idolized the French performer as a child. “People greatly discard older

people today, but here you will find, as I lead you through this story,

that this guy was really something.”

Sandler first gained European fame as a multilingual performer who

recorded, and entertained on stage and television. He made his American

debut in the early ‘60s as part of the Las Vegas revue “Casino de Paris.”

There, he teamed with Ralph Young to form the vocal pairing Sandler &

Young.

The 68-year-old has entertained in famous night clubs including

Caesar’s Palace, The Blue Room and the Persian Room, and appeared on

television shows hosted by Milton Berle, Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson and

others.

“I’m much more of a singer than he was,” Sandler said of Chevalier.

“He was a singer, a clown, a dancer, he did everything.”

Chevalier started performing in a shabby Paris neighborhood at the age

of 12. His father had abandoned the family, his mother was very frail and

he had two brothers. Chevalier took it upon himself to earn the money.

By 1910, he was a popular recording artist in France. By 1920, he had

gained an international fame that only grew when he started making

American films. He continued to score with such musical hits as “Louise,”

and in the ‘50s, starred in the Academy Award-winning film “Gigi” where

he sang “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.”

Sandler and Chevalier first met in Vegas during Sandler’s run with

“Casino de Paris.” Chevalier was 64, his admirer was 31.

“I told him everything I wanted to tell him,” said Sandler, who lives

in Minneapolis. “I told him that probably the best flattery that you can

give to anybody is to say, to especially an artist, that you greatly

influenced me.”

Chevalier smiled gently, Sandler remembers, and reacted in his

introverted way. The two had a long conversation about where each came

from and how they admired America’s sense of show business.

Four years ago, Sandler and Marna Petersen, the writer/director of

“Chevalier: Maurice and Me,” started researching Chevalier’s life

history. It took them two years to get through Chevalier’s 11 memoirs and

an endless well of material on a 70-year career that included ups, downs

and drama.

“It’s a whole deep story,” Sandler said. “There was great humanity

there. There was great suffering.”

Chevalier was a reserved person who experienced bouts of depression

behind a cheerful facade.

He got shot in the lung during World War I and survived.

During World War II, he was accused to have collaborated with the

Nazis.

“And from everything I have read, I would say it’s indisputable that

he did not,” writer Petersen said.

History has it that Chevalier was harboring the family of a Jewish

girlfriend and that the Nazis threatened to deport them if he didn’t

perform at their command.

Chevalier agreed, but on the condition that a certain number of troops

be released as compensation for his performance at a prisoner-of-war

camp.

Nazi propaganda claimed the performer was showing support for the

German cause. Eventually, Chevalier was falsely accused of making a full

tour in Germany, captured by the French resistance and sentenced to die.

Chevalier escaped death thanks to support from friends in the resistance

and from Hollywood heavyweights like Marlene Dietrich.

“Many people would have quit, would have said ‘that’s enough,”’

Sandler said. “Not him.”

It is said Chevalier was also asked to schmooze with high-ranking

political officials in Berlin and attend different celebrations.

“He flat out refused to do it, which was not a very safe thing to do

in those days,” Petersen said.

During the McCarthy hearings, Chevalier was blacklisted a Communist on

the basis of having signed a petition, circulated by a Communist group,

to ban nuclear arms testing.

“But he had no political inclinations or leanings at all,” Petersen

said. “His sole desire was to entertain and cheer people up. He would do

this at great risk to himself.”

During the racial riots of the ‘50s in the United States, Chevalier

was warned not to perform here in case of danger.

“But he felt the Americans needed him, needed someone to have

compassion for them in their time of need,” Petersen said. “He did it

because he wanted to cheer people up. He did that very consistently in

his life.”

Sandler, who has been touring the show for about a year, said it is

his goal to tell Chevalier’s story.

“It’s not for nothing that he was called the good will ambassador for

France to the world,” he said. “That comes clearly through my story.”

FYI

* What: “Chevalier: Maurice and Me”

* When: 4 p.m. Sunday

* Where: Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, 2701 Fairview

Road, Costa Mesa

* Cost: $19-$25

* Call: (714) 432-5880