Charles Denner was born in 1926 to a
Yiddish-speaking
Jewish family in the city of
Tarnów in
Galicia in south-eastern
Poland. His parents were Joseph Denner, a tailor, and Jenta Micenmacher. He had a sister, Élise, and two brothers, Alfred and Jacques. When he was four, the family emigrated to France. During
World War II, his family took refuge in
Brive-la-Gaillarde, where they were helped by Rabbi
David Feuerwerker. Denner served as a
Free French partisan in the Vercors mountains and destroyed a
Nazi SS truck with a
grenade; he was wounded and later received the
Croix de Guerre for this operation. Passionate about theatre from his childhood, Denner became a student of
Charles Dullin, a famous theatre teacher of his time, under whose guidance he remained until 1945. Another great figure of French theatre,
Jean Vilar, impressed by Denner's performance at
Les mamelles de Tirésias (
The Breasts of Tiresias), called him four years after he left Vilar to join the
Théâtre National Populaire (TNP). It was there that he gave some of his earliest stage performances, in plays such as
Heinrich von Kleist's Prinz Friedrich von Homburg and
Alfred de Musset's Lorenzaccio, among others. ==Career==