Marseille - Personalities

Personalities

Marseille was the birthplace of:

• Pytheas (4th century BC) Greek merchant, geographer and explorer
• Petronius (1st century AD) Roman novelist and satirist
• Antonin Artaud (1897–1948), author
• Ariane Ascaride (born 1954), actress
• César Baldaccini (1921–1998), sculptor
• Maurice Béjart (1927–2007), ballet choreographer
• Jean-Henri Gourgaud, aka. "Dugazon" (1746–1809), actor
• Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès (1767–1846), geographer, author and translator
• Désirée Clary (1777–1860), wife of King Carl XIV Johan of Sweden, and therefore Queen Desirée or Queen Desideria of Sweden
• Sabin Berthelot (1794–1880), naturalist and ethnologist
• Adolphe Thiers (1797–1877), first president of the Third Republic
• Étienne Joseph Louis Garnier-Pages (1801–1841), politician
• Honoré Daumier (1808–1879), caricaturist and painter
• Joseph Autran (1813–1877), poet
• Charles-Joseph-Eugene de Mazenod (1782–1861), bishop of Marseille and Founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
• Lucien Petipa (1815–1898), ballet dancer
• Joseph Mascarel (1816–1899), mayor of Los Angeles
• Marius Petipa (1818–1910), ballet dancer and choreographer
• Ernest Reyer (1823–1909), opera composer and music critic
• Olivier Émile Ollivier (1825–1913), statesman
• Victor Maurel (1848–1923), French operatic baritone
• Joseph Pujol, aka. "Le Pétomane" (1857–1945), entertainer
• Pavlos Melas (1870–1904) Greek army officer
• Paul Mauriat (1925–2006), orchestra leader, composer
• Charles Fabry (1867–1945), physicist
• Edmond Rostand (1868–1918), poet and dramatist
• Vincent Scotto (1876–1952), guitarist, songwriter
• Henri Fabre (1882–1984), aviator and inventor of the first seaplane
• Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), composer and teacher
• Berty Albrecht (1893–1943), French Resistance, Croix de Guerre
• Henri Tomasi (1901–1971), composer and conductor
• Zino Francescatti (1902–1991), violinist
• Fernandel (1903–1971), actor
• Marie-Madeleine Fourcade (1909–1989), French Resistance, Commander of the Légion d'honneur
• Éliane Browne-Bartroli (Eliane Plewman, 1917–1944), French Resistance, Croix de Guerre
• Louis Jourdan (born 1921), actor
• Jean-Pierre Rampal (1922–2000), flûtiste
• Régine Crespin (1927–2007), opera singer
• André di Fusco (1932–2001), known as André Pascal, song writer, composer
• Henry de Lumley (born 1934), archaeologist
• Sacha Sosno (1937), sculptor
• Jean-Pierre Ricard (born 1944), cardinal, archbishop of Bordeaux
• Georges Chappe (born 1944), cyclist
• Jean-Claude Izzo (1945–2000), author
• Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi (born 1961), world champion slalom canoer
• Eric Cantona (born 1966), Manchester United and French national team football player
• Patrick Fiori (born 1969), singer
• Marc Panther (born 1970), member of the popular Japanese rock band globe
• Zinedine Zidane (born 1972), professional football player and former captain of the France national football team
• Romain Barnier (born 1976), freestyle swimmer
• Sébastien Grosjean (born 1978), tennis player
• Mathieu Flamini (born 1984), football player
• Rémy Di Gregorio (born 1985), cyclist
• Samir Nasri (born 1987), football player

The following personalities died in Marseille:

• Blessed Antoine Frédéric Ozanam on 8 September 1853.
• French poet Arthur Rimbaud on 10 November 1891.
• King Alexander I of Yugoslavia was assassinated on 9 October 1934 in Marseille along with French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou.