Marc Plotkin

This is Marcel Marceau, a French mime who used his acting skills to save the lives of Jewish children during World War 2. Marceau was recruited by his cousin, Georges Loinger, to become a member of the French resistance during the German occupation of France. Their mission was to smuggle out all the Jewish children from a French orphanage and get them safely across the border to Switzerland. Marceau and the children disguised themselves in Boy Scout uniforms and traveled discreetly through the forests of France. Marceau posed as the leader and made sure to hide all the children's passports and resistance documents in mayonnaise-drenched baguette sandwiches. According to Marceau's logic, the Nazis would not inspect these sandwiches too thoroughly as they would not want to get any of the mayonnaise on their gloves or uniforms. This earned him the nickname, "Monsieur Mayonnaise." According to Loinger, "The kids loved Marcel and felt safe with him. He had already begun doing performances in the orphanage, where he had met a mime instructor earlier on. The kids had to appear like they were simply going on vacation to a home near the Swiss border, and Marcel really put them at ease." When the group finally reached the border, Marceau threw a ball over to the Swiss side and told all the children to go get it. He ended up saving 70 lives. Marceau survived the war and went on to become a world-famous mime and actor. "After the war, I didn't want to speak about my personal life. Not even that my father was deported to Auschwitz and never came back. I cried for my father, but I also cried for the millions of people who died. And now we had to reconstruct a new world. I was twenty-two years old when I said, 'What character will I create?'"

Louis Armstrong serenading his wife Lucille at the Great Sphinx of Giza, Egypt, 1961