According to reviews, Brendan Fraser could win the Best Actor Oscar for his solid performance as the super obese father in the film. The whale, next week. Something lesser known: His family tree is populated with the Généreux family name, which is common in Quebec.
In addition to the 100-pound weight gain, Brendan Fraser has had to wear a monstrous 200-pound getup designed by Montreal artist Adrien Morot to play the 600-pound English teacher who wants to reconnect with his teenage daughter after he left his family.
A real go-getter, Fraser does all his own stunts like Jean-Paul Belmondo used to do. This caused him serious injuries that crippled his career as well as his body. In the film The Mummy, in which his character had to hang himself, he literally suffocated for 18 seconds. In order to make the scene as realistic as possible, we had tightened the rope around his neck a little too much…
Photo by Ancestry.ca
Horatio Généreux with his wife Daisy.
CANADIAN PARENTS
Brendan Fraser was born on December 3, 1969 in Indianapolis to Canadian parents. His father Peter, originally from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, was a civil servant responsible for promoting tourism in the great northern dominion around the world.
Seattle, California, Ottawa, Netherlands, Switzerland: The family has traveled extensively, enough to be able to interview Brendan in French.
His mother, Carol Genereux, was born in Saskatoon. She was the sister of Dr. George Genereux, a graduate of McGill University in the heart of Montreal, the only Canadian athlete to win a gold medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and Canada’s best athlete of the year.
Photo from the Seattle Times
Brendan Fraser’s mother, Carol Genereux Fraser.
Her father from Alberta, Dr. Arthur Genereux, who had married an American in New York, was the son of Jean Horatio Généreux, born at Berthier in Lanaudière.
Horatio had joined the Mounted Police at an early age.
At 18 he was living in St. Thomas in southern Ontario. Three years later he found himself in Fort MacLeod, Alberta, where he married an Englishwoman who had come to Saskatchewan as a child.
FROM LIMOGES TO HOLLYWOOD
The family’s ancestor from the New France period, Pierre Généreux, was a soldier in La Groye’s company who had arrived from Limoges. However, his exact date of birth is not known.
La Groye’s company landed in America around 1686 with a mission to protect the settlers from the Iroquois who were constantly roaming Ville-Marie.
After his military service, Pierre Généreux married Françoise Dessureaux in Champlain, Mauricie, in 1699. The family then settled in Berthier-en-Haut.
The couple had 12 children who were baptized in Sorel and on Île Dupas.
Their son Joseph, also a soldier, settled on a farm in Berthier: he had six children with his first wife and twelve children with his second.
Their descendants spent more than a century in Berthier before Horatio left for Ontario and western Canada.
With Brendan Fraser, that famous daredevil Hollywood actor who risks triumphing again in a few days, we are in the 9th generation of these Generous Americas.
MATERNAL LINE OF BRENDAN FRASER
I Fraser, Peter
GENEROUS, Carol (1937-2016)
II GENEROUS, Arthur George (1901-1975)
DEVINE, Catherine Maria (1903-1964)
Married 2 January 1934 in New York, NY
III GENEROUS, Jean Horatio (1864-1928)
SANDERS-SAUNDERS, Daisy Ann (1874-1914)
Mister. April 23, 1895, red deer, Alberta
IV GENEROUS, Joseph Antoine Edouard (1829-1894)
ST-GERMAIN, Phébé Elisabeth (1825-1872)
Mister. October 6, 1851, Sorel
v GENEROUS, Joseph Ambroise (1799-1854)
HETU, Marie-Émilie (1806-1886)
Mister. February 20, 1827, Berthierville
vii GENEROUS, Antoine (1771-1834)
GENEROUS, Marie-Anne Adelaide (1773-?)
Mister. January 6, 1793, Berthier-en-Haut
vii GENEROUS, Joseph (1718-1797)
HÉNEAULT, Marie-Angélique (1733-1818)
Mister. November 22, 1762, Ste-Geneviève de Berthier
viii GENEROUS, Peter
DESSUREAUX, Francoise (1678?-1758)
Mister. September 28, 1699, Champlain