|Born||Luigi Maria Benevolo|
July 15, 1865
|Died||May 30, 1939 (age 73) |
Benevol (1865-1939), an Italian by birth, was billed as a Mexican when performing in France.
He joined his family's show, in his teens, as an acrobat and musician. In 1894, anti-Italian sentiment among the French (because of the assassinating of their President) led Benevolo to assume a French form of his name and character of a Mexican, to explain his accent.
Benevol's signature piece was a medieval beheading, which was described in The Sphinx of July 1930.
- ↑ LE LEGENDAIRE PROFESSEUR BENEVOL The Nelson Gallery, MUM, Feb. 2006
- Bénévol, le maître du mystère by Jacques Garnier (1969)