Michel Polac

Born on April 10, 1930 into a family of the Parisian bourgeoisie, Michel Polac is the son of a veteran of the First World War, Jewish and Petainist, who died in deportation to Auschwitz during the Second World War, and of whom he does not learn. the conditions of the disappearance than fifty years later. Nephew of Clara Goldschmidt, wife of André Malraux, Michel Polac married an heiress of the Kadjar dynasty, ten years his senior, whom he left after a few weeks. He then married Dominique, a journalist from Vogue magazine. He separates from her a few years later after having had a daughter, Juliette. Finally, he marries Nadia.

In 1947, aged 17, he was spotted by Jean Tardieu and joined the Club d'essai, "experimental laboratory" of the RDF8: "I was still a high school student at Janson de Sailly, says Michel Polac, I animated, with comrades, a high school newspaper made of odds and ends, Entre nous, which we distribute in all the high schools of Paris”. He then multiplies the odd jobs. Worker in a factory of refrigerated locks in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, door-to-door insurance agent, cabin boy on a fishing boat in Cassis, he proposed to Jean Tardieu, in 1951, Entry of the authors, broadcast to identify new theater talent.