Grand Illusion
A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréch...
Acting
Habib Benglia, born August 25, 1895 in Oran (Algeria) and died December 2, 1960 at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris 4th, is a French actor and dancer. He was the first black French artist to experience such success in the 1920s. Married, he was the father of two children.
Born to caravan parents, originally from Mali (then called French Sudan), he lived his entire childhood in Timbuktu, before arriving, with his parents, in mainland France to deliver camels to the acclimatization garden where the exhibition was held. colonial "Les Nègres", in 1912. He decided to stay in France and began his career in 1913, both in theater and in cinema, after having met the actress and dancer Régine Flory, who introduced him to Cora Laparcerie, director of the Théâtre de la Renaissance. Mobilized for the First World War, he then joined Firmin Gémier's theater company which ended up at the Théâtre National de l'Odéon with Gaston Baty in 1922. Benglia was thus the first black to play roles from the classical repertoire, and he found himself also performing the title role of The Emperor Jones at the Odéon in 19234, at the age of 27. However, he explored other aspects of his art: dance, revues, vaudeville... Theater in all its forms remained his passion for more than 36 years. It was primarily through theater that he played a major role in Parisian cultural life between the wars.
Benglia was also interested in cinema, but French cinema hardly offered him good roles. He is most often found in small roles in second-rate films, but also in a few colonial propaganda films, sometimes in ridiculously exotic roles. A few exceptions: Benglia stars in “Daïnah La Métisse”, he has interesting passages in “Sola ou Les Mystères de Paris”, then he makes a brief appearance in “Les Enfants du Paradis”, a film in which he only worked two days (December 5 and 6, 1943). In total, he appeared in around sixty films. It was the range of his deep voice which was most remarkable and which determined the roles entrusted to him.
He died on December 2, 1960 at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris.
Browse movies and TV shows featuring Habib Benglia
A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréch...
In a chaotic 19th-century Paris teeming with aristocrats, thieves, psychics, and courtesans, theater mime Bapti...
A Dutch slave captain, on a voyage to Cuba, faces a revolt fomented by a newly captured African slave, Tamango....
The spahi Jean Peyral is very in love with the flirtatious Cora. When he realizes that she betrays him, he trie...
Captain Justin Mollenard works for a company that sells armaments to the Far East. After an eventful stay in Sh...
Charming and innocent, Candide is vigorously chased away by the Baron, for his close encounters with the pretty...
The old Valmorin died 200 years ago. The notary tells the family about the inheritance: the one who is terminal...
A commander suspects his wife of infidelity, when she turns to a subordinate officer to help her against someon...
At sea, sailors have got to make do with what they have. François is in love with.... the figurehead, the bust...
Dreaming of heroic deeds, a young missionary soon becomes disillusioned.
A little Métis girl, Kalina is saved from a massacre by Taraor, a black man from Sudan. Having become a great a...
"Tu seras duchesse!" ("You'll Be a Duchess!") With these words, self-made industrialist Poisson orders his daug...
After three weeks and a long, hot voyage across the Pacific, an ocean liner finally arrives at its destination,...
Hervé is a tough sea captain in command of the "Duchesse Anne", a rum-trading ship. But the sea dog hides a ten...
Said Ali, an old and sick noble Arab, living on an island in the Red Sea, has no other occupation than collecti...
Yasmina, a rich Tunisian Princess, daughter of a French lady and a Muslim gentleman, is betrothed by a father t...
During a French construction project in the Sudan, a military doctor fights against leprosy and the natives see...
A young man arrives on an African island where he falls in love with the queen of a tribe, a beautiful singer....
Towards the end of the 19th century, the Duke of Gerolstein traveled to Paris. Sixteen years earlier he had a d...
In a small town in Spanish Morocco, old Ricardo, who runs a café, lives with his daughter, Conchita. She believ...
In 1318, in Morocco, a bandit kidnapped the marabout's daughter as a hostage, demanding that the gates of the c...
Whoever brings the Countess back her stolen necklace will receive a bonus of ten thousand francs. Honoré, the v...
A prominent chanteuse on a world tour meets a young fellow European in Singapore, a soldier of fortune who beco...
A team of doctors sets out through a steamy African jungle to check an outbreak of sleeping sickness.
An adventurer tries to seize oil deposits in Mongolia .
In the village of Sableuse, the local manor has been bought out by a nouveau riche, Emile Cousinet. When his wi...
Cruchadouze and Castaniet are two inseparable friends. One day they decide to leave Arcachon to try the adventu...