Molière

Molière — the stage name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622–1673) — was born in Paris to a prosperous merchant family and educated by the Jesuits before abandoning a law career at twenty-one to join a troupe of actors. The Illustrious Theatre failed within two years, landing him briefly in debtors' prison, and he then spent over a decade touring the French provinces with a theatrical company, gradually becoming its leading actor, director, and playwright. Returning to Paris in 1658 under the patronage of Louis XIV's brother, he built a run of comedies — Tartuffe, Dom Juan, The Misanthrope, L'Avare, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme — that repeatedly provoked the very hypocrites and pretensions they satirized, drawing church censure and, in Tartuffe's case, an outright five-year ban. He collapsed on stage performing the title role in his own The Imaginary Invalid and died hours later, on 17 February 1673.