Roger Karl

Roger Karl (29 April 1882 – 4 May 1984) was a French actor. Karl was born Roger Trouvé in Bourges. A friend of Paul Léautaud he long hesitated between literary career, painting and theater. He first published his Journal under the name of Michel Balfort with the title Journal d'un homme de nulle part (Diary of a Man out of Nowhere). He tried theater before 1914 with the cast of Jacques Copeau, he also published with Mercure de France a novel, Une mère (A Mother), using the pseudonym PR Carle. Hired by Antoine at the Odeon Theater , he still participated in tours with Sarah Bernhardt and played the role of Dmitri Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov, an adaptation of Jean Jacques Copeau and Croué. Member of the first troupe of the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in 1913-1914, he did not appreciate the ascetic atmosphere or gymnastic methods and became postwar interpreter of Porche Francis and Henry Bataille.

He then turned to film, where he played great supporting roles, notably in 1920 in L'Homme du large (Man of the Open Seas) by Marcel L'Herbier, after Un drame au bord de la mer (A Drama on the Seashore) by Honoré de Balzac, and La Femme de nulle part (The Woman from Nowhere) under the direction of Louis Delluc. He then toured with Julien Duvivier, Jean Grémillon, Abel Gance, Marc Allégret, Christian-Jaque, but he did not appreciate the constraints of film any more than those of theater and hide his talents in routine jobs.Karl died in 1984 at the age of 102.