Jacques Tati.

On October 9, 1907, Jacques Tatischeff was born in Le Pecq, France, to a Russian noble family. His grandfather, Count Dimitri, had been a general in the Imperial Russian Army and military attaché in Paris. Despite his father’s wishes for him to enter the family picture-framing business, Tati pursued sports and pantomime. He boxed, played tennis, and was introduced to rugby in London, eventually joining the Racing Club de France from 1925 to 1930. At age 24, encouraged by his success as an entertainer in the club’s annual revue, he entered show business.

Jacques Tati made his screen debut in short featurettes like Oscar, champion de tennis 1932 and Watch Your Left 1936. After World War II, he obtained a small role in Sylvie and the Ghost 1946 through Claude Autant-Lara. His first feature, Jour de fête 1949, grew from a short about a postman shot in Sainte-Sévère. Tati introduced his signature character, Monsieur Hulot, in Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday 1953, a character inspired by Buster Keaton and W.C. Fields. The film, almost plotless, featured Hulot arriving in a 1924 Amilcar and causing chaos at a seaside resort. Tati followed with Mon Oncle 1958, which won the Louis Delluc Prize and an Honorary César, and Playtime 1967, a 70mm epic that required building a set called Tativille at a cost of $800,000. Playtime bankrupted Tati and his subsequent film Trafic 1971 failed to recoup losses.

Jacques Tati married Micheline Winter on May 25, 1944. They had a daughter, Sophie Tatischeff. Tati also had a son, Pierre Tati, and a first child, Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel, born in 1942 from a relationship with Herta Schiel, with whom he performed at the Lido de Paris. Tati’s only living family members today live in England.

Jacques Tati directed only nine films, but he is celebrated as a visual comedy pioneer. Entertainment Weekly ranked him the 46th Greatest Director of All Time. His film Playtime 1967 was posthumously honored as a touchstone of French cinema. The Illusionist 2010, an animated film based on a script by Tati, was released after his death and featured archive footage of Hulot. Tati’s meticulous control over every scene and his rejection of Hollywood offers for a series of Hulot films show his commitment to artistic integrity.