Source: Mr. X via Crazy Days and Nights
Old Hollywood
Up until a few years before he passed away, this foreign born A-list actor and entertainer had one of the longest showbiz careers ranging from vaudeville to movies to the concert stage.
He also fabricated a lot of biographical info in his ghostwritten memoirs. The entertainer seemed like a suave, bon vivant ladies man onstage but offstage was a different matter.
He had was what we would now nowadays bipolar disorder and he was prone to almost suicidal forms of depression.
He was also a notorious cheapskate.
To cope with that, early on in his career he became addicted to cocaine which only made his paranoia and distrust of others worse.
After he served in WWI, he later turned to heroin to ease the pain of a battle injury.
Along with speed, he always had a dealer on call to give him his fix.
Maurice Chevalier
1888 – 1972
MAURICE Chevalier was born in 1888, six months after the completion of the Eiffel Tower, and for most of this century, the two have been the most famous symbols of France. Indeed, Chevalier was the world’s most famous Frenchman.
Best-remembered today for his performance in Vincent Minnelli’s film “Gigi,” Chevalier’s amazing career began at the turn of the century in French music hall, at a time when all entertainment was live. His career was to span through the 1960s — for most of that time, with his act virtually unchanged.
Chevalier was a man who lied about the details of his biography to suit his needs of the moment. Early in his career he took great pains to hide his working-class background; later, he celebrated it. He changed dates; he diminished the importance of significant people in his life. Behr sorts through it all.
Chevalier’s life, with its spectacular heights and depths, is a wonder. He learned English in a German prison camp. He became a star in talking pictures at a time when established stars with slight accents were losing their careers, making early musical films with Jeanette MacDonald, whom he despised. He became a superstar in the 1930s. His career survived Josephine Baker’s false accusation that he was a Nazi conspirator. He regained his popularity late in life with “Gigi.” – Source
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