Early Film Actor. Jean-François Clerc was the gardener of Louis Lumière and protagonist of his film Tables Turned on the Gardener, from 1895. He worked for one or two years at the Lumière house in La Ciotat, before going to work for the family Lyon as a gardener. After Lumière filmed several documentary films, such as La Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon in 1895, he placed his camera in the vast garden of the family property in Lyon, and asked his gardener to water some plants. He became, with that scene, the first actor hired expressly to make a film. In the scene, while the gardener waters the flowers, a boy played by Léon Trotobas, a young electrician from the Lumière factory, steps on the hose to cut off the water. The gardener looks at the end of the hose, then the boy lifts his foot off the hose, and the water sprays the gardener in his face. The gardener chases the boy, grips his ear, and slaps him on the behind. The boy runs away as the gardener sprays him with the hose, and the gardener gets back to his watering. Tables Turned on the Gardener, which only lasts 49 seconds, was one of the films screened in December 1895 at the Salon Indien du Grand Café, in Paris. Several months later, he portrayed the gardener again when Louis Lumière filmed a second version of the story, and the son of a factory carpenter, Benoît Duval, played the boy. This second version was called Arroseur et Arrosé (The Sprinkler Sprinkled), which is how the film is now most well-known.
Early Film Actor. Jean-François Clerc was the gardener of Louis Lumière and protagonist of his film Tables Turned on the Gardener, from 1895. He worked for one or two years at the Lumière house in La Ciotat, before going to work for the family Lyon as a gardener. After Lumière filmed several documentary films, such as La Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon in 1895, he placed his camera in the vast garden of the family property in Lyon, and asked his gardener to water some plants. He became, with that scene, the first actor hired expressly to make a film. In the scene, while the gardener waters the flowers, a boy played by Léon Trotobas, a young electrician from the Lumière factory, steps on the hose to cut off the water. The gardener looks at the end of the hose, then the boy lifts his foot off the hose, and the water sprays the gardener in his face. The gardener chases the boy, grips his ear, and slaps him on the behind. The boy runs away as the gardener sprays him with the hose, and the gardener gets back to his watering. Tables Turned on the Gardener, which only lasts 49 seconds, was one of the films screened in December 1895 at the Salon Indien du Grand Café, in Paris. Several months later, he portrayed the gardener again when Louis Lumière filmed a second version of the story, and the son of a factory carpenter, Benoît Duval, played the boy. This second version was called Arroseur et Arrosé (The Sprinkler Sprinkled), which is how the film is now most well-known.
Bio by: Pete Mohney
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