When silent films became popular Guitry avoided them, finding the lack of spoken dialogue fatal to dramatic impact.

The later years of Guitry's career were overshadowed by accusations of collaborating with the occupying Germans after the capitulation of France in the Second World War.

When he returned to Paris he lived in a flat in a prestigious spot, overlooking the Place Vendôme and the Rue de la Paix.

[6] After giving up school Guitry embarked on a career as a playwright with a little musical piece called Le Page, with a score by Ludo Ratz, premiered at the Théâtre des Mathurins on 15 April 1902.

At first he appeared under the stage name "Lorcey";[10] the pseudonym deceived no-one, as the press immediately announced the debutant's real identity.

[12] A member of Lucien Guitry's company was a young actress, Charlotte-Augustine-Hortense Lejeune, whose stage name was Charlotte Lysès (1877–1956).

[8][14] When the leading man in Guitry's 1906 play Chez les Zoaques fell ill the author took over, and in the words of a critic, "proved to be his own definitive interpreter".

[12] In 1915, Guitry made his first cinema film,[n 1] Ceux de chez nous ("Those of our home"), a short patriotic piece that celebrated great French men and women of the day, including Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Edmond Rostand and Camille Saint-Saëns.

Lucien appeared in many productions with his son and Printemps, including Mon Père avait raison and Comment on ecrit l'histoire.

[19] Sir John Gielgud wrote that Printemps and her husband "returned … many times to delight London in various pieces artfully contrived by him to show them both off to the best possible advantage.

[21] Printemps, in a breeches role, played and sang the young Mozart, with Guitry as the composer's patron, Baron Grimm.

Gielgud recalled, "She seemed ravishingly youthful and touching in her powdered wig, black knee breeches and buckled shoes, while Sacha hovered over her with avuncular authority, not attempting to try to sing himself, but contributing a kind of flowing, rhythmic accompaniment with his speeches, delivered in a deep caressing voice.

"[17] After playing successfully at the Théâtre Edouard VII,[22] the company presented the piece for a three-week season in London in June and July 1926.

He took a six-month break from the theatre, returning in April 1933 in Châteaux en Espagne, which co-starred his new protégée, Jacqueline Delubac, whom he married on his fiftieth birthday.

When President Lebrun made a reciprocal visit to London the following year, Guitry wrote a short comedy in English, You're Telling Me, in which the author and Sir Seymour Hicks starred at a command performance and for a limited run after it.

On 16 August 1939, when visiting London, Guitry smuggled over a replica Enigma machine supplied by the Biuro Szyfrow and bound for Bletchley Park.

[29] He was interned in a detention camp at Drancy, and suffered ill-effects on his health that necessitated his transfer to a Paris nursing home.

and their motives at least sensual when they are not base; that his world is inhabited by an idle, cynical, and pretty disreputable crew; that he is obviously contemptuous of his audience, and that his plays are composed with a carelessness which argues a very frail artistic conscience, while literary purists can prove that the language in which they are written is execrable French.