Marcel Paul Pagnol (28 February 1895 – 18 April 1974) was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. Regarded as an auteur, in 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie française. Although his work is less fashionable than it once was, Pagnol is still generally regarded as one of France's greatest 20th-century writers and is notable for the fact that he excelled in almost every medium—memoir, novel, drama and film.

Pagnol was born on 28 February 1895 in Aubagne, Bouches-du-Rhône department, in southern France near Marseille, the eldest son of schoolteacher Joseph PagnolA and seamstress Augustine Lansot. Marcel Pagnol grew up in Marseille with his younger brothers Paul and René, and younger sister Germaine.