PARIS, Sept 23: Marcel Marceau, the French mime artiste who for 60 years transfixed international audiences with his stage persona Bip the Clown, has died at the age of 84, relatives said on Sunday.

Marceau, who is credited with single-handedly resurrecting the art form of mime after World War II, died on Saturday evening “surrounded by his family,” his daughter Camille Marceau told AFP.

Born Marcel Mangel into a Jewish family in Strasbourg, Marceau fled with his family to the central town of Limoges at the start of World War-II. His father was deported and killed, and he himself joined the Resistance -- taking the name Marceau after a Revolutionary French general.

A fan of the silent films of Charlie Chaplin, Marceau enrolled in 1946 at the Charles Dullin School of acting in Paris where he fell under the influence of mime specialists Etienne Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault.

Marceau saw himself as an ambassador for the revival of mime, the “art of silence” -- as he called it -- which had its roots in the Italian Commedia dell’Arte, flourished in the 19th century, but then went into steep decline with the arrival of the movies.—AFP