User:Dannaan/Gésip Légitimus

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(August, 22 1930 in Paris - January, 18 2000 in Paris), Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, TV and record producer, music editor, audiovisual designer, artistic director, organizer of shows and events, radio and television personality, journalist, president of various organizations, president of the French-speaking International Centre of Audiovisual Creation, general director of African TV Productions, occasional film and stage actor.

Victor Hégésippe Légitimus, nicknamed Gésip, born in Paris August 22, 1930 and died January 18, 2000 in Paris, is a pioneer in audiovisual, artistic, political and community Afro-Caribbean expressions in France. he is the great-son of Hégésippe Jean Légitimus, the first black man elected to the French parliament since Jean-Baptiste Belley in 1793 and the son of Darling Légitimus, a famous carribean french actress. Gésip was the first (and for a long time the only) black producer of shows on the french television.

His Artistic Career

Film

Gésip started his career at a very young age. He was only three months old when he appeared as the black baby in Sacha Guitry’s first talking film: “Le Blanc et le Noir” (The White and the Black), with Raimu and Fernandel, for whom it was also a first film. As an actor, Gésip went on to play in more than 50 films. In 1960 he obtained the leading role in “Gala”, a short film directed by Jean-Daniel Pollet and François Bel. He became co-producer of the first film directed by the Hungarian Lazlo Szabo, “Les Gants Blancs du Diable” (The Devil’s White Gloves) starring Bernadette Lafont and Jean-Pierre Kalfon.

Theatre

In theatre, where he started playing at the age of 8 alongside Jean-Louis Barrault, Henri Rollan, Henry Crémieux and Lucien Coedel, he learned how to direct by becoming Raymond Rouleau’s assistant at the Edouard VII theatre in 1948 for Tennessee Williams’s play “A Streetcar Named Desire”, starring Arletty, Louis De Funès, Milly Mathis, Darling Légitimus, etc…. and in 1952 at the Sarah Bernhardt theatre in “The Crucible” with Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Nicole Courcel, Pierre Mondy and his mother Darling Légitimus. In 1960 he collaborated with Roger Blin at the Théâtre de Lutèce, creating “Les Nègres”, a play by Jean Genet with the troupe “Les Griots”. Wanting to artistically support his compatriots in Metropolitan France, he founded the Federation of French-speaking Black Artists which helped theatre companies such as “Les Griots” and “Le Théâtre Noir”, run by his brother Théo. In 1966 he was congratulated by President Senghor and Aimé Césaire for leading the French artist’s delegation at the World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, with Josephine Baker, Marpessa Dawn and Moune de Rivel. In 1979 he was named director of the Theatre de la Renaissance and founded the CICAF (International Centre for French-speaking Audiovisual Creation)

Music

As a musician he led the famous jazz and salsa orchestra “Légitimus” in which his brothers Théo, Gustave and Clément played. From 1947 until 1969 « les beaux soirs du tout Paris exotique » Gésip specialized in the organization of galas and balls for some of Paris’ Grandes Ecoles. He and his traditional West Indian group represented France in a number of international festivals (Bari, Nice, La Rochelle) from 1953 up until 1959 when the group won a gold medal. He organized over 500 shows in Paris and the provinces. His involvement won him the admiration of some of the greatest salsa musicians of the time and they, in turn, became known by playing to audiences all over France. He created “La Savane”, a renowned exotic jazz club from 1957 until 1963. He also createc and contributed to the organization of major national events such as “La France des Quatre Coins du Monde” (France from the Four Corners of the World) in 1976 at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. He was artistic director for Francis Lopez, known for his operettas, as well as for groups such as Touré Kunda and Exile One.

Journalism

He was the sub editor (or copyeditor) of his father’s newspaper “Le Correspondant Antillais” as well as editor for different papers and the magazines: “Bongo”, “Jeune Afrique”, “France Antilles”. With the renowned African musician Manu Dibango he created the newspaper “Afro Music”. In 1976 he founded, co-financed and ran, in collaboration with the African journalist Pierre Coula, BLACK HEBDO “The Newspaper of the Black World”, which was the first weekly newspaper aimed at French Africans and West-Indians.

TV Production, Records, Radio

From 1956 to 1958, Gésip was a student at the Radio Television Center of Higher Studies whose teachings, in part, have been taken on in recent years by the IDHEC and the INA. As a television producer and, by the time he was thirty, as an artistic director, Gésip Légitimus contributed to the development of broadcasting and the promotion of black French-speaking artists. He was the originator of a number of businesses and the first (and for a long time the only) black producer of television shows. He helped a huge number of talented black artists from divers horizons become known to the French television public: Gérard Laviny, Manu Dibango, Tanya Maria, Bonga, Clyde Wright, Jimmy Cliff, the Golden Gate Quartet, Uta Bella, Bella Bello, Bachir Touré, etc. As early as 1967 he created a series of television shows with names such as “Pulsations”, “Sur Tous les Tons”, “Rythmes du Temps”, “SamSong” as well as shows for Sammy Davis Jr., Myriam Makeba, Nina Simone, Ray Charles, Jimmy Smith, Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington’s 70th birthday celebration at the “Alcazar”. He was given the job of directing jazz on the television and of producing 50 shows to celebrate the fiftieth year of jazz in France. At the “Olympia” he worked with Bruno Coquatrix in organizing numerous concerts.

Gésip Légitimus was very concerned about the evolution of the black Diaspora and in 1981 the “Légitimus Report” enabled him to obtain, in the form of the Fillioud law of 1982, the creation of the National Society of Overseas Radio and Television Programs (RFO). In 1982, in Paris, he created the first West-Indian broadcasting station outside the territory to which it transmits (Tropique FM) all the while producing the “Overseas Calendar”, a weekly information page concerning the latest artistic and cultural overseas news, broadcast on RFO.

He was made Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the minister for Culture, Jack Lang.

He died in Paris on the 18th of January at the age of 69.

External links

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