Maurice Chevalier
3 credits on HibingeTV
French actor and singer, born in 1888. A music-hall star in Paris before he came to Hollywood, he became the embodiment of Gallic charm in American films, singing in a straw boater and a tailored suit. He made his American film debut in Innocents of Paris (1929) and starred in The Love Parade (1930), One Hour with You (1932), and Love Me Tonight (1932), all for Paramount. He returned to France before the war and continued performing into his eighties. He died in 1972.
Acted In
Comedy, Musical
A 1930 American pre-Code musical comedy directed by Ludwig Berger, starring Maurice Chevalier and Frances Dee (in her film debut). Albert Loriflan (Chevalier), a waiter in a Paris cafe, unexpectedly inherits a large sum of money from a wealthy relative. His unscrupulous boss, Philibert, refuses to release him from his long-term contract in the hope that Albert will buy him off with a large payment. But Albert refuses, and continues to work at the cafe even though he is now very rich. Before long he falls in love with Philibert's daughter Yvonne (Dee). Based on the 1911 play The Little Cafe by Tristan Bernard. Paramount also produced a separate French-language version, Le Petit Cafe, starring Chevalier, which broke records for opening-day attendance in Paris.
Comedy · Musical · Romance
Playboy of Paris
1930 - as Albert Loriflan
Comedy, Romance
A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by Hobart Henley, starring Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert. Based on the 1928 play of the same name by George Middleton and A.E. Thomas, the film features dialogue by Preston Sturges in his first Hollywood assignment. Chevalier plays Pierre Mirande, a French tour guide in Venice who romances Barbara Billings (Colbert), a visiting American tourist whose father owns a chewing-gum factory. Her skeptical father brings Pierre to America and gives him a job in the plant to test his character. Chevalier sings "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" and "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight" — songs that became signature numbers. He received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his collective work on this film and The Love Parade. The film entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.
Comedy · Romance
The Big Pond
1930 - as Pierre Mirande
Musical, Comedy
Ernst Lubitsch's first sound film and the first Hollywood musical to weave songs into the narrative rather than stopping the story for a number. Maurice Chevalier plays a womanizing military attaché recalled to the kingdom of Sylvania, where the young queen (Jeanette MacDonald, in her film debut) decides to marry him. The comedy turns on the marriage of state: the consort chafes at being a decorative husband, and the queen cannot run a kingdom and a romance at the same time. Lubitsch's touch, the innuendo delivered with a wink, is already fully formed. The film earned six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.
Musical · Comedy · Romance
The Love Parade
1930 - as Count Alfred Renard