Jacques Suzanne
1880–1967 · French painter, artist and self-styled explorer
Jacques Albert Suzanne (Trouville-sur-Mer, Normandy, 1880 – Lake Placid, New York, 1967) was a French painter whose career spanned Europe and North America. Painting was his main activity, though he also worked as a pianist, actor and explorer, on a more occasional basis.
He trained in fine arts at the art school in Le Havre. After his first wife died in childbirth, he emigrated to the United States in 1905, arriving through Ellis Island. He claimed to have tried to reach the North Pole, but gave up when Robert Peary got there in 1909. He later settled in Lake Placid, New York, where he bred husky dogs for films and tourism, and acted in several films, among them Out of Snows (1916) and The Spell of the Yukon (1916).
His friendship with Noah John Rondeau, a well-known local hermit, marked his final years. He died in Lake Placid on August 1, 1967, and was buried in North Elba near Rondeau, who died twenty-three days later.