Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David was born into a prosperous French family in Paris on 30 August 1748. When he was about nine his father was killed in a duel and his mother left him with his well-off architect uncles. They saw to it that he received an excellent education at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, University of Paris, but he was never a good student-- he had a facial tumor that impeded his speech, and he was always preoccupied with drawing. He covered his notebooks with drawings, and he once said, "I was always hiding behind the instructor's chair, drawing for the duration of the class". Soon, he desired to be a painter, but his uncles and mother wanted him to be an architect. He overcame the opposition, and went to learn from François Boucher (1703–1770), the leading painter of the time, who was also a distant relative. Boucher was a Rococo painter, but tastes were changing, and the fashion for Rococo was giving way to a more classical style. Boucher decided that instead of taking over David's tutelage, he would send David to his friend, Joseph-Marie Vien (1716–1809), a painter who embraced the classical reaction to Rococo. There, David attended the Royal Academy, based in what is now the Louvre.
Louis Davids
Louis Davids was born in Rotterdam as son of the comedian and café owner Levie David and Francina Terveen (deceased in 1927) in a poor Jewish family of eight children. His parents were performing artists and Louis sang from the age of eight years at all the state fairs with his brother Hakkie who played the Piano. Until he was 13 years old he also performed with his sister Rika in Rotterdam outside of the fair. After an argument with his father he left for England to be an assistant to a Magician. Returning to Rotterdam a year later, returning home with a lot more experience in variety theater. Together with his sister Rika he managed to secure a job outside of the fair, working at the theater Pschorr, on "Een reisje langs den Rijn" and "We gaan naar Zandvoort aan de zee" amongst others, him and his sister then moved to Amsterdam to work with theater director Frits van Haarlem in Carré with plenty success in creating revues after English fashion. He furthered his success in revue in 1909 working with Henri ter Hall.
After Rika married English magician John Weil and moved to England she parted from the successful duo. Louis then formed another duo, after an unsuccessful attempt at a career as a magician, this time with his younger sister Henriëtte (Heintje). The second Davids duo was a success once more. The husband of Heiintje, Philip Pinkhof, wrote the roles that Davids and his ster would play.