13 February: Maigret

On this date in 1903, novelist Georges Simenon, creator of Inspector Maigret was born. 10 facts about Maigret and his creator:

1. Maigret is described as a large, broad-shouldered man; he is gruff but patient and fair. He has thick Hair, thick Eyebrows and bright Eyes of a "greenish grey" colour.

2. Simenon came up with the idea for the character while drinking in a cafe. He once wrote for a local Newspaper, which is where he picked up a lot about crime and police investigation.

3. Maigret's full name is Jules Amédée François Maigret. However, he dislikes using his first name and prefers to be simply called "Maigret", even by his wife, Louise.

4. Maigret has starred in 75 novels and 28 short stories. The first was Pietr-le-Letton ("The Strange Case of Peter the Lett") in 1931 and the last was Maigret et Monsieur Charles ("Maigret and Monsieur Charles") in 1972.

5. Georges Simenon is one of the most prolific novelists of all time. The Belgian author published over 200 novels under 17 different pseudonyms and 220 novels under his own name. He could write 80 pages of typescript in a single sitting. He could complete a novel in eight days and then spend a few days editing. There’s a story that Alfred Hitchcock once rang him and was told that he couldn’t come to the phone because he was in the process of writing a novel, to which Hitchcock replied, ‘Let him finish, I’ll hang on.’ Writing so fast meant he could indulge in the foible of wearing the same clothes while writing a particular novel to help him stay focussed on it. He would also weigh himself before he started writing a new novel, and again when he’d finished, so he could ascertain just how much writing each one had cost in sweat. He reckoned that writing a book cost him one-and-a-half litres.

6. Maigret began working as a police officer in Paris in his twenties. At 30 he joined the Homicide Squad and later became chief inspector of the squad. Maigret retired when in his mid-fifties, which gave him over 30 years of experience in the police. He retired when Simenon was forced to give up writing because of ill health, and Maigret and his wife now lead a quiet retirement at their country house in Meung-sur-Loire, near Orleans.

7. Simenon was born on Friday 13th February, 1903, in Liège, Belgium. However, his birth was recorded as being on the 12^th, as his family were superstitious.

8. The first screen Maigret was Pierre Renoir in Night at the Crossroads (1932), directed by his brother Jean Renoir. Since then he has been portrayed by many actors, including Charles Laughton, Gerard Depardieu, Michael Gambon and Rowan Atkinson.

9. Simenon owned more than 300 smoking pipes and 150 Telephone directories from different countries. He was a chain smoker, like his creation. He once confessed to smoking six to eight pipes during the creation of one chapter. The phone books were used to find names for characters. He’d spend hours poring over them to select a shortlist of about 300 names. Then he’d read them aloud over and over until one clicked as the name of his next character.

10. Simenon didn’t spend all his time writing. It seems he also spent a lot of time having sex, as he claimed to have slept with 10,000 women. 80% of them were prostitutes. Josephine Baker, a French-American dancer and actress, was one of his most famous lovers.