Maurice Marsac

Although Maurice Marsac originally came to the United States from France as a wine salesman, he wound up finding success in film and on TV as a masterly imitator of the snobbish French maitre d', waiter, and chef. It didn't happen immediately. Marsac had to age into his pitch-perfect ability to corner that obnoxious French server, but by the end of his career, capped by the 1987 Dan Aykroyd comedy, "Dragnet," it was nothing but these sorts of credits. Intriguingly, one of Marsac's very first credits was that of a maitre d' in the 1946 Tyrone Power drama "The Razor's Edge," to go along with another uncredited part as a Gaullist in the Bogart-Bacall classic "To Have and Have Not." Even on "I Love Lucy," it was a matter of Marsac working his specialty, in the form of Tropicana head waiter Maurice. From Andre on "Hart to Hart" to Maurice on "The Beverly Hillbillies," Marsac was always on Gallic call to provide smooth comic relief.