Romain Gary

Romain Gary 21 May OS 8 May 1914 2 December 1980 born Roman Kacew and also known by the pen name Émile Ajar was a French novelist diplomat film director and World War II aviator He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt under two names He is considered a major writer of French literature of the second half of the 20th century He was married to Lesley Blanch then Jean Seberg Gary was born Roman Kacew Yiddish רומן קצב Roman Katsev Russian Роман Лейбович Кацев Roman Leibovich Katsev in Vilnius at that time in the Russian Empire In his books and interviews he presented many different versions of his parents origins ancestry occupation and his own childhood His mother Mina Owczyńska 18791941 was a Jewish actress from Švenčionys Svintsyán and his father was a businessman named AriehLeib Kacew 18831942 from Trakai Trok also a Lithuanian Jew The couple broke in 1925 and AriehLeib remarried Gary later claimed that his actual father was the celebrated actor and film star Ivan Mosjoukine with whom his actress mother had worked and to whom he bore a striking resemblance Mosjoukine appears in his memoir Promise at Dawn Deported to central Russia in 1915 they stayed in Moscow until 1920 They later returned to Vilnius then moved on to Warsaw When Gary was fourteen he and his mother emigrated illegally to Nice France Converted to Catholicism by his mother Gary studied law first in AixenProvence and then in Paris He learned to pilot an aircraft in the French Air Force in SalondeProvence and in Avord Air Base near Bourges Source Article Romain Gary from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30