Sim

Sim born Simon Jacques Eugène Berryer 21 July 1926 6 September 2009 was a French humourist writer and comedian He was part of the team on Les Grosses Têtes a radio and TV programme He also played the part of Geriatrix in the films Asterix and Obelix vs Caesar and Astérix at the Olympic Games Simon Jacques Eugène was born on 21 July 1926 to engineer Henri Berryer and his wife MarieThérèse née Bonnemazou At the time of his birth Henri was an electrician for the director Abel Gance and grip on the film Napoléon The family lived in a small flat in the Rue du FeràMoulin a cinema district in the 5th arrondissement of Paris where Simon spent the most part of his earliest years at flats 26 then 28 Very early on his Russian uncle working at SynchroStandard took Berryer to see the first talking pictures which he would remember all his life In 1936 the family moved to Nantes when Berryer senior found work as a technician at Le Majestic cinema later LOlympic then La Fabrique At the age of eleven Barryer founded a comedy group called SimArtage fourteen according to other sources In 1939 with his friend Jojo Sim got his first award in a funny face competition organised on 15 August at SaintJuliendeConcelles Age fourteen they played truant and performed sketches in a cellar with fake letters to their school justifying their absence Simon later studied at De Launey technical college in Nantes In 1941 his parents took over a cinema LÉden in the small town of Ancenis between Nantes and Angers The family moved from Nantes to Ancenis en 1942 and reopened the cinema Sim continued his studies at the Joubert dAncenis lycée and worked as projectionist in the family business In 1946 the Berryer family stopped working at the Ancenis to start a film distribution company at Rennes without success The Berryer parents returned to Ancenis but Sim now married stayed in Rennes as a projectionist at Le Royal This venue also staged musical performances so Sim saw performances from Edith Piaf Yves Montand Henri Salvador Maurice Chevalier among others He practiced his comedy alone after the performances He won a contract as a humorous singer in a ballroom He was spotted by Étienne Perrin with whom he performed a comic clown act Etty et Balta At the end of 1953 he toured as a comic song act in the Paris cabaret clubs often in drag as at Madame Arthur in Montmartre He also worked at the Crazy Horse Saloon as a dresser This stage of his career would be resurrected in Elle boit pas elle fume pas elle drague pas mais elle cause by Michel Audiard where he plays a schoolteacher who has a sparetime drag act In the 1960s he was part of Jean Nohains team producing animated childrens television and performed the Baronne de la TroncheenBiais in a Guy Lux production In the 1970s he was part of many televised sketch shows He also performed comic sketches and songs with humourist Édouard Caillau on RTBFs Chansons à la carte In France he was a regular performer in short comic sketches often in costume on Guy Luxs programmes Source Article Sim actor from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30