Early Life
Pascal was born during June 1894 in Arad, Austria-Hungary (today Romania), Pascal coined his own name and his real name remains unknown. Pascal's early life is shrouded in mystery. He claimed to have been an orphan taken from a burning building as a child and raised first by Gypsies before being taken away to an orphanage. He also claimed that the Gypsies taught him to beg, steal, and do acrobatic tricks. It is unclear what parts of his fabulous account of his childhood are true as there are no formal records of him prior to the age of 17 when he was enlisted in military school in Holíč, Hungary, by a mysterious Jesuit priest. Pascal, who was decidedly unfit for military life, became interested in theater and studied at the Academy of the Hofburgtheater in Vienna. Later his interest expanded into the newly burgeoning cinema and he made films in Germany and Italy with sporadic success. Becoming teetotal at an early age, he smoked cigars prodigiously, later provoking being admonished by George Bernard Shaw that he would ruin his voice.
Pascal had one son, Peter, conceived in Germany during the delirium of a fever with his landlady's sister Elsie. Unable to care even for himself, Pascal fled to the Netherlands. After WWII ended, Pascal visited Germany to search for his son Peter, but he was listed among the missing Hitler-Jugend. Elsie had been killed by a bomb.
Read more about this topic: Gabriel Pascal
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