Philippe Gaulier, a French clown who was known as one of comedy’s greatest teachers, with students including Sacha Baron Cohen and Emma Thompson, died on Monday. He was 82.
Michiko Gaulier, his wife, said in an emailed statement that he had died “due to complications from a lung infection.” He had been ill since having a stroke in 2023, the statement added. It did not give a full list of survivors.
In recent decades, Gaulier had gained wide respect in the comedy world thanks to his school, the École Philippe Gaulier, which he founded in Paris in 1980 and ran from London during the 1990s, before returning to France in 2002. But his pugnacious style — in which he would insult and mock his pupils — also made him a divisive figure.
Gaulier defended that approach in a 2022 interview with The New York Times, saying that unfunny students had a choice. “You have to change or leave,” he said: “If you want to stay boring all your life, you will never be a clown.”
Gaulier didn’t just teach the art of clowning. His childhood ambition was to become a tragic actor, and students at his school could also take classes in the Greek classics, Shakespeare and Chekhov.
The academy’s diverse alumni include the actors Rachel Weisz and Thompson (who once told The New Yorker that Gaulier was her “entry into silliness”); Zach Zucker, the host of the anarchic Stamptown variety nights in New York, Los Angeles and London; and Simon McBurney, a founder of the experimental physical theater company Complicité.
Yet despite the varied careers of the school’s graduates, it was as a teacher of clowning that Gaulier became best known. Baron Cohen wrote in a foreword to Gaulier’s book “The Tormentor: My Thoughts on Theater” that Gaulier had helped him “understand how to be funny.”
Gaulier told The Times in 2022 that the secret to great clowning was finding “your idiot.” It was almost like a return to childhood, he said: “A clown is a special kind of idiot, absolutely different and innocent.”
On Tuesday, high-profile and rising comedians and clowns posted tributes to Gaulier online. Elf Lyons, a genre-defying British standup, said in a lengthy Instagram post that although Gaulier had a reputation as a tormentor and “wasn’t flawless or a saint by any means,” he was a great teacher who cared deeply about his students.
“With great lightness and dexterity, and also sharp, well-punctuated words that were both acidic and hilarious, he was able to bring out the potential within every student,” Lyons said. “He truly believed every student had something.”
Lorna Rose Treen, a British character comedian, said Gaulier “one of the most important influences” on British comedy in the past 80 years. “Without him there would be a lot less weird and a lot less fun,” Treen said on Instagram.
A full obituary will be published later.
Alex Marshall is a Times reporter covering European culture. He is based in London.
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