In Praise of a Character Actor: Raymond Aimos, 1930s French Cinema and the Margins of Stardom

In the preface to Raymond Chirat and Olivier Barrot’s Les Excentriques du cinéma français , Barrot writes affectionately of the excentriques of French cinema: “Ce sont les seconds rôles, acteurs de complément, aussi indispensables à la puissance d’évocation des films que les stars. Membres actifs de la famille des comédiens, catalyseurs de notre complicité, ces ‘excentriques’ […] sont nos amis”. Located far from the centre, in terms of audience recognition and narrative status, these character actors, who worked consistently and across genres from 1929 to 1958, form an indispensable part of French cinema, adding in particular colour, mood and nuance to 1930s French cinema. This article focusses on one particular “excentrique”, Raymond Aimos (1889–1944), showing how his vocal and performative style, his genre eclecticism and embrace of an “anti-stardom” register and his frequent on-screen positioning as the star’s friend, confidant or comic side-kick exemplifies his marginal status in the domestic film industry of the period.