7. The world’s most famous mime was also a French Resistance hero
Marcel Marceau was the world’s most famous mime. Before becoming world famous, however, Marceau spent most of WWII in hiding, and working for the French Resistance. His father, a Jewish butcher, had fled from the Nazi invasion in 1940, but was captured, and died in Auschwitz. Marcel moved to Paris with a new name and forged identity papers, and adopting the surname “Marceau” after a French Revolutionary War general, joined the Resistance.