Francois Joseph Talma

François Joseph Talma , 1763-1826, French actor. The greatest tragedian of his time, he broke with tradition and foreshadowed the romanticists. He continued Lekain's reforms, paying close attention to costume, and employing gestures and a more emotive and less declamatory style of acting. In 1787 he made his debut at the Comédie Française in Voltaire's Mahomet and in 1789 gained fame in Marie-Joseph Chenier's Revolutionary play, Charles IX. Avoiding controversy during the Revolution, Talma left the Comédie Française and set up his own theater, called the Théâtre de la République, which was eventually united (1799) with the Comédie Française. He was the leading actor during the Empire, and a favorite of Napoleon.

Talma, François-Joseph (1763–1826), French actor, brought up in England, where he was about to join a London company when his father sent him back to Paris. There he entered the newly founded École de Déclamation, shortly to become the Conservatoire, and after tuition from Molé and others made his début at the Comédie-Française in 1787 in Voltaire's Mahomet. Although handsome, with a fine presence and a resonant voice which made him an excellent speaker of verse, he had played only small parts when in 1789 he appeared in the title-role of Chénier's Charles IX, which all the older actors had refused because of its political implications. Talma declaimed the revolutionary speeches with such fervour that the theatre was in an uproar, and was eventually closed. Supported by some of the younger members of the company, he moved to the Théâtre de la Révolution (the present Comédie-Française), where he appeared in Corneille's Le Cid and other classical revivals, as well as in some of Shakespeare's tragic parts in translations by Ducis. In 1799, when Napoleon, who had met and become friends with Talma at Mlle Montansier's salon, reconstituted the Comédie-Française, Talma rejoined the company and put in hand many reforms, notably in the costuming of plays. He was the first French actor to play Roman parts in a toga instead of contemporary dress, and he also reformed theatrical speech, suppressing the exaggerations of the declamatory style and allowing the sense rather than the metre to dictate the pauses. One of his great successes at this time was in a revival of La Fosse's Manlius Capitolinus in 1805. In 1817 he visited London, appearing at Covent Garden in extracts from his best parts, and he attended John Philip Kemble's farewell performance and banquet. He remained on the stage until four months before his death with no lessening of his great powers.