Born in Geneva on 9 April 1895, several months before the first ticketed public screening of the Cinématographe Lumière in Paris, Michel Simon was recognised as one of the most important figures in film and theatre during his lifetime. He made his first appearance on the silver screen in the mid-1920s in La Vocation d’André Carel [The Vocation of André Carel (Jean Choux, 1925)], a film shot on location on the shores of Lake Geneva. During this period, he also took to the stage, starring in several prestigious plays at the Comédie des Champs Elysées in Paris. However, his career really flourished thanks to film and he worked with the greatest French filmmakers of the early talkies, including Jean Renoir, Jean Vigo, and Marcel Carné.
The Cinémathèque suisse’s substantial iconographic collection dedicated to Michel Simon, which also includes a large collection of film posters, is the result of several successive acquisitions. A significant proportion of the material was compiled by André Chevailler from sources in Switzerland, France and the USA. Certain documents come from the JP Giraudoux collection in Paris (acquired by A. Chevailler on behalf of the Cinémathèque suisse) and others were donated by Margarethe Krieger (Michel Simon’s art teacher in Germany). The Cinémathèque suisse showcased this collection by co-organising two major exhibitions devoted to the actor, the first in Vevey in 1982 and the second in Geneva in 1995.